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SKETCH 

UF THE 

LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

OP 

EDWARD D. BAKER 

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM OREGON, 



AND FORMERLY REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM ILLINOIS, 

WHO DIED IN BATTLE NEAR LEESBURG, VA., 

OCTOBER 21, A. D. 1861. 



" Who trod the ways of glory, 

And sounded all the depths and shoals of fame." 

Shakesfeabe. 



By JOS. WALLACE. 



SPRINGFIELD, ILL. 

187"0. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

JOSEPH WALLACE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 

District of Ilhnois. 



By transfer 
The White House 
March 3rd, ISiS 



Journal Company, 

Printers and Binders, 

Springfield, III. 



PREFACE. 



From time immemorial, it has been a custom with 
the noble fraternity of authors, whenever they offered 
a new book to the reading public, to preface it with 
such remarks, explanatory and apologetic, as might be 
deemed best to secure the favorable attention of that 
public. In accordance with this time-honored usage, 
the writer of the present sketch, before introducing his 
hero directly to the reader, begs leave to offer a word 
of explanation. 

The principal portion of the following memoir, with 
others of eminent Illinoisans, was prepared, by the 
writer, about the close of our late civil war, with the 
view to a joint publication ; but that idea having been. 
temporarily abandoned, he now offers this little work to 
the public in a separate form. 

A number of fugitive notices and obituaries of Colonel 
Baker appeared in the newspapers of the country, at 
the time of his death, and, soon thereafter, a well written 



iv raEFACE. 

biographical article from the ready pen of Mr. John Hay, 
(present secretary of American Legation at the Court 
of Madrid,) which was printed in Harper's Magazine 
for December, 1861. Other brief sketches, more or less 
accurate, are also to be found in the late Encyclopedias, 
and among the various historical records of the Eebcl- 
lion. Nothing, however, in the shape of an extended 
narrative, has hitherto been published of one, whom, in 
life, the nation willingly honored. To supply, in some 
measure, what, in this respect, seems to be a public want, 
is the object of the present volume — a work which, 
while making no pretensions to the character of a full 
and elaborate biography, is, nevertheless, the most 
complete of any previously produced of its gifted and 
lamented subject. The writer has aimed to write not 
as a partisan, but to portray the man just as he was; 
letting him S2)eak for himself upon the great questions 
dividing public sentiment in his day. 

The eulogies of Hon. O, H, Browning, of Illinois ; of 
the late Hon. James A. McDougall, of California, and 
of Hon. Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, delivered in the 
Congress of the United States, on the occasion of the 
formal announcement of Senator Baker's demise, are, in 
themselves, fine oratorical productions, and constitute a 
valuable portion of this book. They are inserted in the 
form of an appendix at the close of the sketch. 



PREFACE. V 

The photographer of the likeness of Colonel Baker, 
which precedes the title page, is Mr. Isaac H. Yoorhis, 
of Springfield, 111. — the picture being copied from an 
elegant steel portrait in the hands of Dr. 'William Jayne, 
of this city. 

With these introductory remarks, and without under- 
taking to apologize for its many imperfections and 
deficiences, the writer submits his work, with whatever 
of merit it does possess, to the candor of those who 
may choose to read it. 

Springfield, February 1st, 18V0. 



ERRATA. 

On page 14, Ctli line of the last ijaragraph, for Broad Axe River, read Bad 
Axe River. 
Page 51, next to last line of the first paragraph, for gray hald, read good gray. 
Page 56, 4th line of the last paragraph, for leader, read leaders. 
Page G5, 11th line of the middle paragraph, for incapable, read capable. 
Page 66, 11th line of the first paragraph, for 1832, read 1830, 
Page 111, bottom line, for Neio, read Neio York. 
Page 114, introductory line, for Views, read View. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

His Birth — Parentage — Early Life 10 

He Studies Law, and Marries 13 

Serves in the Black Hawk War — Removes to Springfield 14 

Laying the Corner Stone of the Old State Capitol 17 

Mr. Baker in the Legislature 19 

His Election to Congress 23 

Brilliant Speech on the Oregon Question 24 

Mr, Baker's Letter to his Constituents — He Lectures in Baltimore. 81 
He Takes Part in the Mexican "War — Speech on that Subject ... 33 

He Removes to Galena — Is re-elected to Congress 40 

His Eulogium on President Taylor 42 

The Panama Railroad , . . 46 

Colonel Baker in California 49 

His Celebrated Oration on the Death of Senator Broderick 51 

He goes to Oregon — Is elected to the United States Senate 61 

His Great Speech in the Senate 65 

Remarks on the Pacific Railroad Bill 83 

Remarks on the Peace Conference Propositions 89 

He speaks in New York City — Enters the Field in the War of the 

Rebellion 98 

His Memorable Reply to Senator Breckenridge 99 

The Battle of " Ball's Bluff' —Colonel Baker's Death 106 

His Funeral Obsequies Ill 

General View of his Character 114 

APPENDIX. 

Eulogy of Hon. 0. H. Browning , . . . .12*7 

Eulogy of Hon. James A. McDougall 134 

Eulogy of Hon. Schuyler Colfax , 142 



EDWARD D. BAKER, 



THE 



ORATOR AND SOLDIER 



" Whene'er he speaks, see ! how the listening throng 
Dwell on the magic of his tongue. 
And when the power of eloquence he'd try, 
Here lightning strikes you, there soft breezes sigh," 

Plutarch, that great literary ornament of his age 
and country, has said : " Eloquence is to be looked for 
only in a free State''; and, quoting Longinus, has fur- 
ther observed : " Liberty is the nurse of true greatness ; 
it animates the spirits and invigorates the hopes of 
men ; excites honorable emulation, and a desire of ex- 
celling in every art. All other qualifications may be 
found among those who are deprived of liberty, but 
never did a slave become an orator ; he can only become 
a pompous flatterer/' 

These philosophic truths find an apt and forcible illus- 
tration in the history of our own country, which has 
ever been famous for the number and ability of its ora- 
tors. If there is any one thing of which the American 



10 THE LIFE OF 

people are peculiarly fond, independent of an all-perva- 
ding spirit of gain, it is fine speaking. They have 
an unusually high, not to say inordinate admiration 
for men, blessed by nature with the divine gift of elo- 
quence ; and hence any man possessed of a reasonable 
share of brains and culture, if he be but endowed with a 
plausible address, fluent tongue and bold imagination, 
may safely calculate on sooner or later attaining honor, 
oflice and emoluments at the hands of his countrymen. 
Looming proudly up at the head of this class of men, 
who, at different periods in the history of this Eepublic, 
have suddenly shot up in the political firmament, and 
shone for a time with all the dazzling radiance of 
meteors, is the honored name of him whose cventfu^ 
and romantic history we now essay to write. 

HIS BIRTH — PARENTAGE — EARLY LIFE. 

It was a bleak morning, the 24th of February, 1811, 
in an humble apartment in the city of London — that 
great centre of the world's commerce, and time-honored 
seat of literature and civilization — that Edward Dick- 
inson Baker first opened his eyes to behold the light 
of day, and his infant mind first took cognizance of the 
busy, bustling, teeming Avorld around him. Of the 
precise rank and character of his family, it is diflficult, 
at this distance of time and place, to form a determi- 
nate opinion, though he was evidently of pure Anglo- 
Saxon blood. His father, Edward Baker, was a man of 
considerable education, and possessed of literary tastes. 
His mother was a sister of Captain Thomas Dickinson 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 11 

of the British navy, an officer of distinction, who fought 
with great gallantry under Lord Collingwood at Tra- 
falgar. Edward D, was the eldest of a family of five 
children, two of Avhom survive him, viz : Dr. Alfred 
Baker, of Pike county, Illinois, and a sister named 
Elizabeth, who married Mr. Theodore Jerome, and sub- 
sequently removed to California. 

About the close of our last war with Great Britain, 
when Edward D. was in the fourth year of his age, his 
father emigrated with his family to America. Landing 
at Philadelphia, he engaged in the vocation of teaching, 
but with what success is not ascertained. Young Ed- 
ward spent the ensuing ten years of his life in the city 
of " Brotherly Love," where some of his more distant 
relatives still reside, and where his name is held in 
affectionate remembrance. 

Of his early habits and favorite pursuits, but little is 
known ; though it appears that while a boy he was full 
of spirit and fire, quick of apprehension, naturally in- 
clined to bold attempts, and likely to make a figure in 
the w^orld. We are told that, in consequence of the 
indigence of his parents, as soon as he was old enough 
to engage in manual labor, he was apprenticed to a 
weaver, and kept at this humble and laborious trade for 
some years. 

In 1825, the elder Baker, impelled by that restless 
spirit of adventure which afterwards formed so pre- 
dominant a trait in the character of his gifted son, 
gathered together his little stock of household goods, 
and again turned his face westward, with the hope of 
improving his fortune. He first rested at the little 



12 THE LIFE OP 

town., of New Harmony, Indiana, in the rich valley of 
the Wabash. Remaining there onl}^ a year or two, he 
journeyed still further west, finally locating in Belle- 
ville, St. Clair county, Illinois, Avhither his son Edward 
had already preceded him on foot from the Wabash. 
Here he oj^ened a select school, which he conducted 
successfully for several years. Belleville, at this period, 
was the most important town in the State — the home 
of many of her leading men, and distinguished for the 
w^ealth, refinement and hospitality of its inhabitants. 
It was in the refined social atmosphere of this goodly 
place that young Baker, then a sprightly lad of fifteen, 
passed the next two or three years of his life, and his 
intellect began to expand into full power and maturity. 
He, perhaps, never had an^^ taste for, if he ever 
enjoyed the opportunity of pursuing, a systematic 
course of study, such as has ever been considered, by 
the best educators of j^outh, essential to the harmo- 
nious development and proper discipline of all the in- 
tellectual faculties. But he early manifested a strong 
passion for books, reading with avidity everything on 
which he could lay his hands, particularly History, 
Biography and Poetry. It is said that his marked taste 
for literature attracted the attention of the accomplished 
and lamented Governor Edwards, then a resident of 
Belleville, who gave the youthful student free access to 
his extensive and well selected library. Possessing a 
rare aptitude for acquiring information, a ready and 
highly retentive memory, his mind soon became stored 
with the rich treasures of literary lore, from which, in af- 
ter years he drew copiously as from a perennial fountain. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 13 

From Belleville, Baker went to St. Louis in quest of 
employment ; and here, to meet necessary expenses, he 
drove a dray for at least one season. 

HE STUDIES LAW MARRIES JOINS THE CHURCH. 

Dissatisfied with St. Louis, we next find him at Car- 
rollton, the seat of justice of Greene county, Illinois, 
wiiere he began the study of law in the office of Judge 
Caverly, serving, at the same time, as a dej)uty in the 
county clerk's office. How long he thus pursued his 
legal studies is undetermined ; perhaps not more than a 
year, for as soon as he had gained a superficial knowl- 
edge of the science, being spurred on by necessity, he 
procured a license and commenced practice. Owing, 
however, to his youth, limited legal attainments, and 
the absence of influential friends, he met, during the 
first years of his professional life, with but indifferent 
success. 

Having become entangled with an affair of the heart, 
Mr. Baker was married on the 27th of April, 1831, to 
Mrs. Mary A. Lee, a widow lady with two children, and 
considerably his senior in years. This alliance proved 
a happy one, though it added comparatively little to his 
fortune. Four children were born of this union — two 
sons and two daughters. The daughters have long since 
married, and with their aged and widowed mother now 
reside on the far Pacific coast. 

Soon after his marriage, Baker joined the Eeformed 
or Christian church, of which his wife was a worthy 
member. Being naturally of an impulsive and enthu- 
siastic temperament, he was, for a time, prompt and 



14 # 



E LIFE OF 



zealous in the discharge of his religions duties, became 
an able exhorter, and began to entertain serious thoughts 
of entering upon the work of the ministry. But as 
years glided by, his mind becoming occupied with poli- 
tics, and feverish with the gn a wings of ambition, he 
gradually " slipped the anchor of faith," and was no 
longer seen in his accustomed place in the house of de- 
votion. 

It was while an active member of the Christian church 
that he first discovered that boldness of thought and 
opulence of expression, that graceful and persuasive 
manner of speaking, for which he became so justly 
celebrated in maturer life; 

SERVES IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR — REMOVES TO SPRING- 
FIELD. 

In the spring of 1832, Mr. Baker enlisted as a i:)rivate 
in the memorable Black Hawk Avar, and thus improved 
the opportunity afforded of gratifying his early predi- 
lection for martial pursuits^ He served in the volunteer 
ranks until the close of the campaign by the decisive 
battle of Broad Axe Eiver ; but it does not appear that 
he achieved any special distinction. In this connection, 
however, a story is told which will serve to illustrate 
his youthful daring and intrepidity. When his regiment 
was mustered out of service, near Dixon, on the upper 
waters of the Mississippi, instead of returning home 
overland with his comrades-in-arms, he procured a canoe 
from some friendly Indian, and, accompanied by a sin- 
gle com2:>anion, boldly descended the Father of Waters 
a distance of about oO'O miles, to some convenient i^oini!, 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 15 

in Calhoun county, where he landed his frail bark, and 
thence j)roceeded on foot to his home in Carrollton. 

In 1835 Mr. Baker removed to Springfield, then a 
thriving shire town of 1500 souls. At this time he was 
in the 25th year of his age, and in appearance not re- 
markably prepossessing. His dress comported well 
with the straitened state of his finances. He wore a 
dilapidated hat of an antique pattern, and a suit of 
homespun jeans^ loosely and carelessly thrown about 
him. The pants, being some inches too short, exposed 
to view a pair of coarse woolen socks, whilst his pedal 
appendages Avere encased in broad, heavy brogans, such 
as were commonly worn by the stahvart backwoodsmen 
of the day. Nevertheless, his step was elastic, his figure 
neat and trim, and the features of his face regular and 
pleasing to the eye. One glance at his manly counte- 
nance was sufficient to impress the observer with the 
belief that upon that brow " intellect sat enthroned," 
Avhilst his eyes beamed with wit and good nature. He 
was then as a diamond in the rough, which only needed 
to undergo the refining process of the lapidary, in order 
that its native hues might shine forth in all their 
original lustre. 

Shortly after coming to Springfield, Mr. Baker asso- 
ciated himself in the practice of law with Josephus 
Hewitt, Esq., who afterwards removed to IS'atchez, 
Mississippi. Subsequently, he entered into partnership 
w4th the now venerable Judge Stephen T. Logan, and 
for a short time with Albert T. Bledsoe, late assistant 
Secretary of War of the late Southern Confederacy. It 
was here that Baker first applied himself seriously to 



16 tm: life op 

the duties of his profession, and here he won his first 
laurels as an advocate. No town of equal size in the 
AVest could boast of such a phalanx of forensic and 
political talent as was, about this time, to be found at 
the Springfield bar. 

" Here have aris'n men of towering mind, 
The praise of nations, glory of our kind. 
Those who have poured the forceful legal strain, 
Or held the assembly bound with magic strain ; 
On battle fields have shed their generous blood, 
Or midst the proudest in the council stood." 

Lincoln, Douglas, McDougall, Shields, Logan, Trum- 
bull, Stuart, McClernand, and others, were men whose 
abilities, learning and eloquence would have graced any 
court and dignified any bar — men who have shed unfa- 
ding lustre, not alone upon the State of Illinois, but 
upon the whole Union. Some of these are dead, but 
others are living still, noble examples of the preceding 
generation. 

With such formidable rivals as these, Baker was com- 
pelled to struggle for that eminence in his profession 
which he rapidly attained. Although disinclined to 
close, continued study, and often negligent in the prepa- 
ration of his cases, he had sufficiently mastered the 
principles and intricacies of legal scienc9 as to meet the 
ordinary requirements of practice, and his native genius 
supplied any deficiency. His confident, self-possessed 
air amidst the bustle of a court of law, his quickness 
of perception, ready wit, fertility in resources, and 
ardent eloquence, enabled him to achieve the victory in 
spite of the most determined opposition from older or 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 17 

more experienced antagonists. In jury eases he was 
especially successful ; for in these he was less fettered 
by those legal forms and technicalities which ordinarily 
curb the reins of youthful imagination, and crush the 
flowers of fancy. Indeed, a jury to him was but a 
miniature popular assembly, before which he would pour 
out his arp'ument and invective at will, or indulo-e in 
those exquisite touches of pathos, which failed not to 
awaken the sympathy and move the hearts of his 
auditors. 

LAYING THE CORNER STONE OF THE OLD STATE CAPITOL. 

Mr. Baker first came into public notice by being- 
selected to deliver the oration on the occasion of laying 
the corner stone of the old State House in Spring- . 
field, on the 4th of July, 1837. The following concise, 
yet historically interesting, account of the ceremony is 
taken from the files of the "Sangamo Journal," under 
date of July 8th of that year: 

" This day (July 4th) was celebrated in Springfield with unusual 
eclat. The military companies of the town, and Capt. Neale's newly 
organized company of horse, under the command of Major Baker, 
were early on parade. A feu dejo'te was fired at sunrise. After vari- 
ous evolutions of the military in the forenoon, tlieypartookof a dinner 
furnished by Mr. W. Watson. In the afternoon a procession was 
formed, at the First Presbyterian church, of members of the Mechan- 
ics' Institute, with banners displayed, and citizens, who were escorted 
to tlie Methodist church by the- military, where Mr. Wiley delivered a 
very appropriate address; after which the procession was again formed 
and moved to the Public Square. The imposing ceremony of laying 
the corner stone of the new State House was then performed. The 
committee for that purpose were : 



18 TltE LIFE OF 



TgE L 



"A. G. Henry, Acting Commissioner; J. F. Rague, President of Me- 
chanics' Institute ; B. Ferguson, Vice President, do.; Abner Bennett, 
Secretary do.; Capt. G. Elkin, Sharpshooters; J. S. Roberts, do.; J. 
N.Francis, do.; Capt. E. S. PhilHps, of Artillery; Lieut. \Vm. M. 
Cowgill, do.; F. C. Thornton, do. 

"There were deposited in the stone a list of the chief officers of 
the State ; a copy of the law locating the seat of government at 
Springfield; a copy of the journals of the last session of the General 
Assembly ; several specimens of coins, comprising some of the late 
issues from the mint, as also some of the year 1795 ; the name of the 
architect, with those of the commissioners under whose superintend- 
ence the same is to be erected. 

" The corner stone having been deposited in the designated place, 
Major Baker ascended it, and gave a short, but pertinent and animated 
address to the concourse of people who were present. He alluded to 
the occasion and the place on which we had met ; glanced at the his- 
tory of our State and nation : anticipated the brilliant destiny of 
Hlinois under the controling influence of virtue and intelligence, and 
sought to impress on the people, that, under this influence, they 
might expect all they could desire for our country in the years yet to 
come — 

" If with the firm resolve to Avear no chain, • 
They dare all peril, and endure all pain ; 
If their free spirits spurn a chain of gold, 
By wealth unfettered, and to ease unsold ; 
If, with eternal vigilance, they tread 
In the true paths of their time-honored dead — 
Long as the star shall deck the brow of uight ; 
Long as the smile of woman shall be bright ; 
Long as the foam shall gather where the roar 
Of oceai. sounds upon the wave-worn shore — 
So long, my country, shall thy banner fly, 
Till years shall cease, and time itself shall die.* 



* The lines here recited by Baker, formed the concUision of a New Year's 
Address, written by him for the Sangamo Journal iu the preceding year — 1836. 



EDWARD D. BAKER 19 

"At the close of this spirited address, the welkin rang with huxzas, 
a salute was fired, and the people and military retired, highly gratified 
Avith the px'oceedings of the day." 



MR. BAKER IN THE LEGISLATURE, 

Enterprising and ambitious, Mr. Baker early directed 
his attention to politics, as opening the shortest road to 
preferment. In 1837, he was elected to the General 
Assembly from the county of Sangamon, to fill a vacancy 
occasioned by the resignatioh of Hon. Daniel Stone, 
In the following year he w^as re-elected, serving with 
credit on the judiciary and other committees. 

AYhen any measure of moment was to be discussed, 
he was generally ready with a speech; and his reputa- 
tion as an orator was such, even then, that he seldom 
failed to secure an attentive and delighted audience; 
but the dry details and monotonous routine of legisla- 
tive proceedings proved irksome to his impatient spirit. 
Hence his seat w^as not unfrequently vacant, and he more 
pleasantly, if not more profitably employed elsewhere. 

During the session of 1839--40, a memorial was pre- 
sented in the House of Eepresentatives, preferring grave 
charges against Hon. John Pearson, Judge of the 7th 
judicial circuit of Illinois, and praying for his impeach- 
ment and removal from offece. In due time a resolution 
w^as ofi'ered, providing for his impeachment. The sub- 
ject soon assumed a partisan character, and was Avarmly 
debated — the Whigs generally favoring, and the Demo- 
crats opposing the measure. At length the House, by 
a party vote, decided against the impeachment. 



20 T^ LIFE OF 

As an embodiment of Mr. Baker's views respecting 
this decision of the House, and of the importance of 
preserving unblemished the purity ofthe judicial ermine, 
we give place to the subjoined able and earnest Protest 
drawn up by himself, and signed by a minority of the 
members, including Abraham Lincoln, one of his col- 
leagues : 

"The undersigned, members ofthe House of Representatives, have 
seen with unalloyed regret the decision of the House, in favor of the 
resolution against impeaching John Pearson, Judge of the 7th judicial 
circuit, upon the charges and specifications lately preferred against 
hiui. 

" Those charges were of a high and grave character, and as evidence 
that they were so considered by the House, it will be seen that the 
House resolved, by a large majority, to have the proof relied on to 
sustain them. That proof has been heard ; it has not only tended to 
sustain, but it has established, by the highest grade of testimony, 
every specification alleged against the respondent. Xor is there one 
fact stated in those specifications which has not been proved, either 
by the records of the Circuit court, or the oaths of two intelligent 
and respectable witnesses ; and we have embodied in. this protest 
some of the facts thus established. It has been proved that John 
Pearson, Judge of the 1th judicial circuit, has violated the right of 
trial by jury, by relusing the counsel for the prisoner a peremptory 
challenge to a juror — his prescribed number of challenges not being 
exhausted — alleging, as a reason therefor, a rule of practice of his 
circuit which was unreasonable, against the forms of law, and the 
letter and spirit of the Constitution. He has prevented an appeal 
from his decision to a higher tribunal, by refusing, in numerous cases, 
to sign " bills of exceptions " containing a. statement of his decision, 
and the testimony o'.i which such decision was based, when he, as well 
as the counsel in whose favor he decided, aduiitted these statements 
to be true ; and wheu the statutes of the State, expressly making it 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 21 

his duty to sign such bills of exception, have been read to him, he 
still persisted in his refusal, saying that such statutes were but a 
"legislative flourish." 

" He has arrogate! to himself the right of final decision, subject 
to no appeal, by refusing to hear, and disobeying the process of the 
Supreipe Court of the State of Illinois, commanding him to sign bills 
of exceptions, thereby treating the mandates of a Supreme Court with 
contempt, and denying an appeal from the tribunal over which he pre- 
sided. He has treated with contempt and scorn the process of a Court 
of the United States, which he was bound to obey, by refusing to 
hear it, and by treating it with utter neglect. He acted in an arbi- 
trary and oppressive manner, by threatening counsel for presenting 
in a respectful manner the process of the Supreme and of the District 
Court of the United States, and by actually punishing them for so 
doing, not once only, but repeatedly, under the influence of passion 
and excitement, thereby perverting the power placed as a sacred trust 
in his hands to the indulgence of personal feeling and private 
resentment. 

*' He has shoAvn culpable ignorance of the law, by quashing an 
indictment for the sole reason that the clerk had left out one word in 
the copy delivered to the prisoner, and by quashing indictments at one 
term, for the single reason that the date in the caption was in figures, 
when the statutes of the State expressly directs the caption to be so 
written, thereby permitting crime to have a free course, obstructing 
public justice, and degrading the character of the Judiciary in the 
eyes of the Avorld. 

" These facts have been proved in the presence of this House, and 
every candid observer will bear us witness that they have received no 
darker coloring from our statements ; and yet, with these startling 
facts fresh in the recollection of the House, it has been solemnly deci- 
ded by a majority, in which was included every member agreeing in 
political sentiments with the respondent, that they did not afford rea- 
son that the said John Pearson should be impeached. That decision 
is final ; he is again to ascend the bench ; again to be entrusted with 
the issues of life and death, and again to officiate, not merely as a 



90 



;|PE LIFE OF 



minister of stern and impartial justice, but as tlic i-eprcsentativc of the 
majesty and dignity of tlie law. 

"To permit this result without the formality of a trial, is, in our 
estimation, dangerous, if not fatal, to the purity of the judicial char- 
acter. We have ever struggled to maintain the independence of the 
Judiciary, and to place it high above the assaults of party violence 
and political feeling ; but Ave have also desired to see all Judges 
amenable to the law they are called upon to administer, and subject to 
those I'estraints wisely provided for in other countries, and in the 
Constitution of our own. We believe that, in this case, the authority 
of precedent, the usages of the past, and the dictates of the Consti- 
tution have been alike disregarded; and being firmly of the opinion 
that the decision of this House will tend to render our Judges irre- 
sponsible, and to bring our courts into contempt — to destroy the rights 
of individuals, and cast disrespect on the administration of public 
justice. 

" We, therefore, present this remonstrance against the judgment 
of this House ; and if, as citizens of the State, rejoicing in her honor 
and sorrowing in her shame, we shall find these predictions fulfilled, 
and be compelled to look back at the action of this honorable House 
as the fruitful source of judicial tyranny and oppression, casting a 
stain upon the public character, and bringing ruin to individual inte- 
rest, we at least desire that all men may know that we have not 
assented to the decision, so we are not answerable for the consequen- 
ces. Therefore, against the resolution of this House, declaring that 
the Hon. John Pearson, Judge, &c., should not be impeached and 
brought to trial, we do most respectfully but earnestly protest." 

In 1840, Mr. Baker entered with ardor into the cele- 
brated "Log Cabin" and "Hard Cider Campaign,'' In 
connection with Lincohi, Hardin and other prominent 
"Whigs of central Illinois, he took the stump, and threw 
all his influence in favor of the " Tippecanoe and Tyler 
too " candidates of the Whig partj', and against Martin 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 23 

Yan Buren, the Democratic candidate for President, 
General Harrison was triumphantly elected; but Illi- 
nois, being strongly Democratic, was carried for Mr., 
Yan Buren by a small majority. 

In the same year, Baker was elected to a seat in the 
Illinois State senate, which position he held for four 
years. Though still a young man, his abilities and ex- 
perience placed him at once in the front rank, and 
caui^ed him to be recognized as one of the leaders on 
the Whig side of the senate. He participated in every 
important debate — "more," perhaps as was onoe ob- 
served of Sir William Pulteney, "for his own improve- 
ment, than with any expectation of materially changing 
the vote." 

HIS ELECTION TO CONGRESS. 

Mr. Baker had now served with much credit and ac- 
ceptability in both branches of the General Assembly. 
The good fortune which had thus far attended his 
political^ career, inspired him with fresh confidence in 
his owm powers, and stimulated his ambition to reach a 
higher and more extended field of usefulness than that 
afforded by a mere State Legislature. Accordingly, in 
1844, he sought and obtained the nomination for Con- 
gress in the Capital district of Illinois. Defeating his 
Democratic competitor, John Calhoun, (subsequently of 
Kansas notoriety) by a majority of 700 votes, he took 
his seat at Washino-ton in December, 1845 — heing- the 
only Whig representative from his State. His colleagues 
in tills Congress w^ere Stephen A. Douglas. John . A- 



24 ^ 



E LIFE OF 



McClernand, John Weiitworth, Orlando B. Ficklin, 
Eobert Smith, and Joseph B. Hoge. 

At this time the principal topic of discussion in leg- 
islative and diplomatic circles was the " Oregon Boun- 
dary " disj^ute, Avhich, it was thought, would eventuate 
in a war with Great Britain. Baker, ever jealous of 
the honor of his adopted country, took high ground in 
favor of the retention, by the United States of all ter- 
ritory to which claim had been laid, and was classed 
among what were known as the " Fifty-four Forties, or 
fight." On January 16th, 1846, he offered in the House, 
the following spirited resolution expressive of his views 
on this exciting question: 

Remhed^ That, in the opinion of this House, the President of the 
United States cannot consistently, with a just regard for the honor of 
the nation, oifer to surrender to any foreign power any territory to 
which, in his opinion, we have a clear and unquestionable title." 

BRILLIANT SPEECH ON THE OREGON QUESTION, 

A few days thereafter, when the resolution from the 
committee on Foreign Affairs, requesting the President 
to notify Great Britain of the intention of the United 
States to terminate the joint occupation of Oregon, and 
to abrogate the convention of 1827, was under conside- 
ration in Committee of the Whole, Mr. Baker addressed 
the Committee in a speech of great eloquence and abili- 
ty, favoring the adoption of the resolution. This speech 
was delivered with uncommon animation, and with such 
astonishing rapidity that, it is said, the reporter found 
it impossible to take it down as fast as it was uttered. 



EDWxiRD D. BAKER. 25 

In the course of his remarks, when referring to the 
power and greatness of his native land, he thus sub- 
limely spoke: 

"Mr. Chairman, I admit the joower of England ; it is a moral as well 
as a ph)'sical supremacy. It is not merely her fleets and her armies ; 
it is not merely her colonies and her fortresses — it is more than these. 
There is a power in her history which compels our admiration and 
excites our wontler. It presents to us the fidld of Agincourt, the 
glory of Blenheim, the fortitude of " fatal Fontenoy," and the fortunes 
of Waterloo. It reminds us hoAv she ruled the empire of the wave, 
from the destruction of the Armada to the glories of Trafalgar. Nor 
is her glory confined to arms alone. In arts, in science, in literature, 
in credit, and in commerce, she sits superior. Hers are the princes 
of the mind. She gives laws to learning and limits to taste. The 
watch-fires of her battle fields yet flash warning and defiance to her 
enemies, and her dead heroes and statesmen stand as sentinels upon 
immortal hights, to guard the glory of the living. 

" Sir, it is thus I view the policy of Great Britain. I am, therefore, 
not concerned at the description given of it by the gentleman from 
South Carolina. But I confess, sir, that this conviction of her great- 
ness makes a very different impression on his mind and on mine. He 
recounts her fleets, her armies, her steam marine, her colonies, as 
reasons for what I understand to be submission. He draws a picture 
of our commerce destroyed, our flag dishonored, and our sailors 
imprisoned ; our lakes possessed by the enemy, and, worse ihan all, 
our industry destroyed, and the spirit of our people broken. Sir, 
what is this but an appeal to our fears ? It is an appeal which will 
find no echo in the depths of the American heart. I, on the contrary, 
point to the glory of England in a spirit of emulation. She has 
attained her greatness by her fortitude and valor, as well as by her 
wisdom. She has not faltered, and, therefore, has not failed. If she 
has sometimes been grasping and arrogant, she has, at least, not 
"blenched when the storm was highest." It is true that she has. 
steadily pursued the line of a great policy ; and for that policy she has 
dared much and done more. She has considered her honor and her 
3 



26 ^lE LIFE OF 

essential interests as identical, and she lias been able to maintain 
them. Sir, I would profit by her example. I would not desire to set 
upon light and trivial grounds. I would be careful about committing 
the national honor upon slight controversies. But when we have 
made a deliberate claim in the eyes of the world ; when we persist 
that it is clear and unquestioned ; when compromise has been offered 
and refused ; when territory on the American continent is at stake ; 
and when our opponent does not even claim title in herself, I would 
poise myself upon the magnanimity of the nation, and abide the issue." 

Discussing the general policy of England, and the 
probabilities of a war with her, he continued : 

" And if war should grow out of this Oregon question, it will not 
be a little war, but neither will it be a hasty one. It is not upon a 
sudden impulse that the peace of the world will be broken ; nor will 
England adopt a course which has been left for the excited imagina- 
tion of the gentleman to suggest. 

*' It appears to me, Mr. Chairman, that England will not abandon 
what I think to be her generally wise and statesmanlike course, for 
this disputed and barren territory. Unlike us, she has neither honor 
nor essential interests involved in the question. She has asserted no 
title in herself She is only contending for the privilege of coloniz- 
ing ; and I do not believe that any good reason can be given why she 
should risk a war with us. England will, no doubt, see that she has 
much to lose, and nothing to gain. I repeat, sir, I do not think that 
our assertion of our right to the whole territory ought to lead to war. 

'< But, Mr. Chairman, suppose it to be otherwise ; how does the 
argument stand then? We assert this territory to be ours. The 
President believes it, our negotiator believes it, this House believes 
it, the country believes it. But, say gentlemen, "England will go to 
war." In my opinion this will not be so; but if she does, is that a 
reason for surrendering our rights ? If it be, national honor is 
dead within us. I know that whenever a western man touches upon 
this view of the subject, it renders him liable to a sneer at what gen- 
tlemen are pleased to call "western enthusiasm." I desire to treat 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 27 

this as an American question, and I shall not be driven from that 
course. I am not one of those who supported Mr. Polk. I used the 
utmost of my ability to prevent his election ; and when Mr. Clay was 
beaten, I confess, I felt as the friends of Aristides may be supposed to 
have felt when he was driven from Athens. I had no share in the 
Democratic Baltimore Convention. I thought then, and think now, 
that it was unwise and unfair to attempt to make "Oregon" a party 
watchword. And I believe that much of the difficulty in which we 
now find ourselves arises from that course. But when the question is 
made — when our title is asserted — when the opinions of our people, 
based, perhaps, upon the action of Congress, have become fixed, and 
we are willing to maintain our rights at any sacrifice, then many of 
the movers of this agitation begin to falter. Some have got Texas 
and are content — some have become enamored of " white robed 
peace " — some clamor for 49 deg. and compromise — but they all join 
in deprecating " western enthusiasm." Sir, the West will be true to 
its convictions. I believe that portion of the West which sustained 
Mr. Polk will still be for the whole of Oregon. And, sir, I think that 
those who opposed him, many of whom believed the Democratic out- 
burst for Oregon to be a mere party maneuver, will now consider it 
an American question, and stand by the country. Such, sir, will be 
my course on this floor. 

Speaking in defense of the restless, pioneering spirit 
of Western men, he said: 

" There was another remark made in the course of this debate 
which may merit a reply. It was said that it was the restless spirit 
of Western men which caused this trouble by their occupation of 
Oregon, and they were ridiculed for seeking homes across the Rocky 
Mountains. I desii'e gentlemen to remember that it has been the 
policy of this Government to encourage the settlement of the West. 
Our whole system of land laws, and especially our pre-emption laws, 
have had that tendency. And as to Oregon itself, this House has 
received with the greatest favor, for several preceding sessions, a bill 
for the express purpose of encouraging settlement on the borders of 
the Pacific. Sir, it is to the spirit which prompts these .settlers that 



28 •:e life of 

we are indebted for the settlement of the Western States. The men 
who are going to beat down roads and level mountains — to brave and 
overcome the terrors of the wilderness — are our brethren and our 
kinsmen. It is a bold and free spirit ; it has in it the elements of 
grandeur. They will march, not 

Like some poor exile, bending with his woe, 
To stop too fearful, and too faint to go ; 

But they will go with free steps ; they will bear with them all the arts 
of civilization, and they will found a Western Empire. Sir, it is 
possible they may not receive protection, but, at least, they should be 
shielded from reproach. 

In concluding this able and statesman-like effort, Mr. 
Baker discussed the " Monroe doctrine " at some length, 
showing its bearing upon the question at issue; and 
indulged in a proj^hetic view of the future destiny of our 
country : 

"I suppose, sir," said he, '* that when Mr. Monroe made his famous 
declaration of 1823, he designed it to have some practical aiDplication. 
That portion of it referring to European interference with South Ameri- 
can politics was occasioned by the attempt of the Holy Alliance to 
assist the Bourbons to recover an ascendency in South America. But 
that portion of it which denied that ' any unsettled portion of the con- 
tinent was the subject for future European colonization,' was intended 
to apply to the north west coast of the Pacific, the very territory in 
question. It was so treated in the debate on the Panama mission, and 
Judge White, of Tennessee, expressly so stated in that discussion. 
A moment's reflection will make it apparent that this was its object ; it 
was indeed the only considerable territory to which it could refer. I 
don't consider, sir, that when a declaration of this general character is 
made by a President or Congress, that we are bound to sustain it by 
force of arms whenever its principles are violated. But I insist that it 
was a statement of a great American policy ; that it well became our 
growing importance ; that subsequent events — our increase in popula- 
tion, in States, in commerce, in all that constitutes greatness — will give 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 29 

it still greater authority. And I submit that this is the very ease 
which demands its practical application. This territory is unsettled; 
it is on this continent ; it is contiguous to this Union. As long as it 
was merely ground for hunting and trapping, and trade with Indians, 
it was of but little consequence. But now the wave of population 
breaks across the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, and mingles its spray 
with the Pacific. It is becoming settled, and will soon be of commer- 
cial importance. The question is, shall we permit it to remain open to 
foreign colonization ? I say that question should be determined, judg- 
ing of us not merely as we are, but as we probably shall be. 

*' The doctrine that a nation has a right to regard the preservation 
of its vital interests, in such a controversy, is to be found in the best 
considered papers of modern times. It is the province of enlightened 
statemanship to look forward, and no statesman can fail to perceive tlie 
importance of that territory to this Union. To divide the country 
would be to build up rival and conflicting interests — to permit England 
to build up a commercial if not a military Gibralter on the Pacific coast. 
It would be to surrender all chance of fair and equal rivalry in com- 
mercial enterprise in that sea. It would be to put England in possession 
of another key to control what may be the seat of a vast commerce. 
Mr. Chairman, I think that to abandon the principles of Mr. Monroe's 
declai'ation would be to falter in the path which providence has marked 
out for us, and to prove ourselves unworthy of a high destiny. It is 
not thus -that England has 'halted by the wayside.' She has gone 
onward with a steady and imperial march. She has seen her destiny, 
and has pursued it ; and she has made a small island on the borders of 
Europe the seat of the mightiest power the world has ever known. 
The seat of our power is a vast continent. We are widely separated 
from Europe, and unconnected with its politics. In the very spring 
and vigor of our youth, we too, are pressing onward with the steps 
of a giant. Ours will be the predominating power on this continent ; 
and our permanent peace and our essential interests will be jeopardized 
by any foreign colonization. 

"Would Great Britain permit us to colonize any portion of India 
contiguous to her possessions ? Would she permit us to annex any 
dependent state, if there was one, on her East India frontier ? Would 



30 TII^LIFE OF 

we permit her to conquer or purchase Cuba ? No sir. It is in this 
sense I would apply the doctrine of ' manifest destiny,' so often remarked 
in debate. It is an expression which I did not originate, and which 
does not convey my idea ; but, sir, I would not be willing to shut my 
eyes to the argument contained in the phrase itself. The doctrine of 
natural boundaries sometimes establishes a title to a country. A deep 
river, a rolling ocean, an unsetttled country, a contiguous territory — 
all lend force to our pretentions. Providence has separated us from 
the Old "World ; and our policy as well as our institutions should per- 
petuate the division, 

" In conclusion, it only remains for me to say that I am as far, as any 
gentleman on this floor, from a desire to precipitate this country and 
Great Britian into a war, I believe that peace is the policy of both 
countries. We are running a career of earnest (I trust not ungenerous) 
rivalry, and we are both disseminating the English language, the prin- 
ciples of free government, and the blessings of religious toleration. 
Yet I believe that this notice is the best mode of maintaining peace, if 
it can be maintained on honorable terms ; but if we can only preserve 
peace by a surrender of American territory ; by adopting a course as 
impolitic as it would be degrading, I shall give my vote for every 
measure the honor of the country may demand, under what, I trust, 
is a true sense of my responsibility as a legislator and a man," 

The ardent support which Mr. Baker lent to the 
administration of President Polk on the Oregon question, 
seems to have drawn upon him the censure of some of 
his more bigoted Whig associates. He, therefore, avail- 
ed himself of the first favorable oj)portunity to rise in 
the House, to a personal explanation, and defined his 
position in the following characteristic style : 

He said : " I was opposed to his (Polk's) election. 
I am opposed to every measure of his administraton 
of a mere party character. I need not say this in my 
own district, or to my own people, but I desire to 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 31 

saj it here, so that wherever the report shall go, the 
correction may go also — wherever the bane goes, the 
antidote may follow\ I now say that, except so far as 
Mr. Polk may be for the honor of our country in our 
foreign relations, I am opposed to him. I rejoice in 
being a Whig. I would rather be a "Whig defeated, 
than a Democrat successful. I am for Mr. Clay. I 
would be willing to run him again. I had rather vote 
for him than any man in the world, and I take this 
occasion to say, that, as in all times past I have given 
my warm support to "Whig men, and Whig principles ; 
so in either fortune, amid disaster and defeat, to the 
very last of my blood and breath, I am a Whig, con- 
stant and unchanging, now and forever." 

MR. baker's letter TO HIS CONSTITUENTS — HE LECTURES 
IN BALTIMORE. 

In the latter part of February, 1846, Mr. Baker 
addressed a lengthy letter to the people of the 7th Con- 
gressional district of Illinois, on the subject of the 
English Corn Law^s, and the influence their repeal was 
likely to exert upon the agricultural interests of this 
country. This letter, disclosing on the part of the 
writer, an intimate acquaintance with the laws of j)olit- 
ical economy, attracted considerable attention, and 
attained a wide circulation through the press. 

Notwithstanding his many public duties and engage- 
ments. Baker, about this time, found leisure to deliver 
an elaborate lecture, in Baltimore, on the subject of 



82 'm^ LIFE OP 

the " Influence of Commerce upon Civilization." The 
following interesting synopsis of this lecture is taken 
from the " Baltimore American" of that elate : 



" The 5tli lecture of the course, in aid of the Sabbath School attached 
to the Eev. Mr. Hanmer's cl;urcli, was pronounced last evening'by the 
Hon. E. D. Baker, member of Congress from Illinois, to a large and 
highly appreciative audience. The influence of commerce upon civi- 
lization, formed the basis of his discourse. It afforded a wide and 
fertile field for intellectual research ; and we are pleased to say that, 
the lecturer travelled over and explored it most satisfactorily. He 
evinced a studious, patient investigation of, and thorough acquaintance 
with the world's history. The march of civilization had been onward, 
hand in hand with the encouragement and spread of commerce. Its 
neglect for the accomplishment of mere military renown, had been in 
all ages, and was destined to be, followed by a deterioration of general 
happiness, and nobler virtues of the human race. This, part of the 
early history of Greece and Rome, and other places, renowned in 
ancient times for their elevation to greatness, and subsequent pros- 
tration, fully attested. With the establishment of commercial inter- 
course between nations, was introduced, of necessity, the refinements 
and virtues of civilized life. They became a part of the traffic. Whilst 
one people invited to their ports the merchandise of another, if they 
were more advanced in mental accomplishments, those who come 
amongst them were made partakers of their superior advantages, and 
exchanged not only commodities of physical traffic, but obtained from 
association incitements to refinement, and were induced to imitate the 
example of their superior in moral excellence. In like manner, when 
the more civilized nations of the earth pushed their commerce into 
other portions of the globe, they carried with them characteristic vir- 
tues — the advantages of which were seen, admired and imitated. 

*'As the world grew older and its population increased, both sea and 
land, from the smallest to the most extended scale, became a grand 
theatre of commercial enterprise ; changing and interchanging com- 
modities of traffic, as well as the principles of civilization. The 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 33 

views of the speaker upon this point were beautiful, eloquent, and 
comprehensive. He left no room to doubt that the influence of com- 
merce upon civilization was all-powerful. It carried the most ingenious 
arts, and approved sciences into the very midnight of human habita- 
tions ; the seeds of which being sown, soon sprung up, fertilizing and 
ameliorating the condition of man — producing abundant harvest, which, 
in the fullness of time, was gathered in to nourish the great cause of 
moral excellence and progressive civilization, 

"The lecture, throughout, was heard by an attentive and admiring 
audience ; who were not only agreeably entertained, but, we feel con- 
fident, received there from information highly beneficial. The Speaker's 
manner of delivery was accomplished, and the style and language of 
his lecture, choice and elegant. The closing portion was truly beauti- 
ful, charming the hearer in enraptured admiration." 

HE TAKES PART IN THE MEXICAN WAR SPEECH ON THAT 

SUBJECT. 

When the war broke out w^ith Mexico, Eaker's mar- 
tial spirit was. fully aroused. Having, as w^e have 
ah^eady mentioned, seen some service in one of our 
frontier wars with the Indians, he could not now content 
himself to luxuriate in inglorious ease, whilst others were 
Avinning laurals on the "tented field." He accordingly 
hastened home to raise a regiment of volunteers, and 
proceed to the theatre of strife, where battles were to 
be fought and glory won. 

" The announcement of his name and purpose was as 
magical as the summons of Ehoderic Dhu ; more oficred 
than could be accepted — 

*' From the gray sire, whose trembling hand 

Could hardly buckle on liis band. 
To tlie raw boy, whose shaft and bow 

Were yet scarce terror to the crow, 
Till at the rendezvous they stood, 

By hundreds prompt for blows or blood." 



34 IpE LIFE OF 

His regiment being promptly filled, it was accepted 
by the Government, as the 4th Illinois Infantry. On 
arriving at Matamoras, on the Rio Grande, he soon 
discovered that the troops stood greatly in need of 
additional tent equipage, munitions of war, &c. Ee- 
maining in camp for a few months, he accepted the 
position of a bearer of despatches to the War Depart- 
ment, and repaired to Washington, Congress being in 
iscssion, and not having resigned his seat in the House 
he availed himself of his privilege as a member to 
make a speech of magical power, in favor of a vigorous 
prosecution of the war, and in behalf of the volunteers 
then in the field — whose wants, he contended, it was 
the duty of the government at once to supply. 

We present here a few leading extracts from this fine 
impromptu effort, delivered December 28th, 1846. Mr. 
Baker began as follows : 

" Mr. Speaker, I desire to return m)' sincere acknowledgments to 
those gentlemen on both sides of the House, who, I know, have been 
anxious to obtain the floor, but have kindly yielded it to me that I 
might have the opportunity of addressing to the House a few hasty 
remarks, before returning to the army in Mexico. While I thank the 
gentlemen for this act of courtesy, I beg leave to say that I understand 
it to be intended by them as a tribute to the gallantry and devotion of 
the brave men with whom I am associated. For myself, I must say, 
that I feel humbled when I remember how little I have done to deserve 
such kindness, or to entitle me to any such mark of regard. I could 
wish it had been the fortune of the gallant Davis — formerly a member 
on this floor, but now for distant, engaged in fighting for his «ountry — 
to now stand where I do, and to receive from gentlemen on all sides 
the congratulations so justly due to him, and to listen to the praises 
of his brave compeers. For myself, I have been unfortunately left far 



EDWARD D. BAKER» 35 

in the rear of the war, and, if now, I venture to say a word in behalf of 
those Avho have endured the severest hardships of the struggle, whether 
in the bloody streets of Monterey, or in a yet sterner form on the 
banks of the Rio Grande, I beg gentlemen to believe that while I feel 
this a most pleasant duty, it was with others a duty full of pain ; for I 
stand here, after six months service as a volunteer, having seen no 
actual warfare in the field. 

"It is not without profound astonishment that I have observed the 
course of the present debate, as it has thus far proceeded, I am sure 
that it was not imagined,and would scarce be believed by my brave 
comimnions in Mexico, that in this the third week of the session, the 
American Congress was in grave debate on the subject of mobs in Ohio, 
and by what numerical majorities certain individuals have been chosen 
to the next Congress. The men who have fought at Palo Alto, at 
Resaca and at Monterey had not expected this. The men who have 
endured on the banks of the Rio Grande- all that fierce disease, aggra- 
vated by the want of even the necessaries, whether of war or of mere 
subsistance ; half clothed, hardly fed, are looking from Matamoras and 
Tampico, with all the earnestness of their souls for the moment of 
advance ; whose eyes are looking for aid, support and encouragement 
from Congress, and their friends at home — these men certainly have 
not anticipated such a spectacle on this floor as I have had the pain to 
witness, and must sufter the still greater pain of declaring to them. 

"I am constrained by what I have seen and heard to believe that 
Congress is not quite informed as to the actual state of things in Mex- 
ico. However this may be, I have a few facts to state, to which I 
respectfully invite your attention. It is not my purpose to engage 
for a moment in anything like political or party controversy. Where 
my sympathies have once been, I need not state ; and where they have 
been, there they still are, and there they will remain through good and 
through evil fortune, unchanged. But at present, I cannot perceive 
that the question of Whig or Democrat has to be put in order to decide 
upon the only question which is now, or ought to be, before the 
House ; and my object is to urge the members of the House, without 
regard to party difference, to act immediately, to act efficiently in 
behalf of the gallant army, now toiling, bleeding and suffering in a 
foreign land. 



36 ^E LIFE OP 

*' In the first place, the army m Mexico needs more men, and more 
money ; and they need it now, without delay. I have been informed 
that the entire force now in the field, including Taylor's column, 
Butler's division. Wool's column, and Patterson's division, is not over 
11,500 men, excluding perhaps Gates' artillery battalion, and two 
other regiments, now recruiting, and some troops which may have 
arrived by this time at Tampico. With this amount of force, there is 
an area of country to be covered which it is difficult to describe. 
Commencing at Monterey, it extends to Saltillo, Montemoredoz, Mata- 
moras, Camargo, Coahuila, and through Victoria to Tampico itself, and. 
as much farther as we may be able to penetrate. Of this number, it 
will require at least 3,000 to garrison Saltillo and Monterey, and thus 
hold tlie advance we have already made in that direction, exclusive of 
Cliihuahua, Santa Fe, and California ; and besides what will be neces- 
sary in order to garrison the various other posts we have established, 
whether for peaceful or military purposes. 

"^I understand that the Congress and President of the United States, 
kindled into ardor by the glories which are gilding the national eagles, 
are longing for new conquests, and panting to witness fresh triumphs 
of our arms. In that hope, I myself most fervently join. But I would 
press upon the House whether, let the army approach the city of Mex- 
ico, either by the way of Ft. St. Juan, or by that of St. Louis -Potosi, 
it is possible with ten, or twelve, or fourteen thousand men to cover 
the country we have, and push our advance to the consummation of 
the war. I express the opinion, not without diffidence, but must say 
I doubt whether it is possible with that amount of the very best soldiers 
America ever sent into the field (and better men never were sent from 
any country) to conquer eight millions of people. Let it be recollectd 
that this little army of fifteen thousand men is scattered over an area 
of country extending fiA'e hundred miles from North to Soutli, where 
all the mean sof communication are uncertain, and is filled with a hostile 
population. How can such a number of soldiers, even the best disci- 
plined and the most skilful and experienced, divided into two or three 
columns, separately operating, be expected to prosecute their advance, 
and have it marked, as it has thus far been, only with glory and honor ? 

" But it is asked, what use would it be to reinforce the army to any 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 37 

great extent, because even if we secure the capital itself, and plant 
our standard over the city of Mexico, we shall be no nearer peace than 
we are on this day ? If that is true, it surely ought to have been 
considered before we commenced the war, and especially before we 
commenced an invasion of the Mexican territory. Mexico commenced 
an attack on what we claimed as- American soil, and I am not one of 
those who were for yielding it up to them, either then or now. If the 
war is just, it does not follow that it is a war of invasion ; as a war* of 
defence, it has been most glorious to the American arms. So far as it 
can be called a war upon the ocean, we have it in our power to laugh 
all opposition to scorn. A war of invasion has not been necessarily 
incumbent upon us ; yet the House voted the supplies for its prosecu- 
tion almost unanimously. There was, as I understand, scarcely a 
dissenting voice as to the propriety of the advance of our army. All 
parties, and all classes of people among us, were agreed, that, if we 
made war at all, it ought to be sudden, vigorous, and brief The army 
did advance accordingly, and we have gained in a brief space of time 
three great battles. We have advanced, it is true, some three hundred 
miles into the Mexican territory, yet we have scarcely, to any per- 
ceptible extent, weakened the country, or crippled its resources. On 
the contrai-y, it is a matter of not a little doubt, whether Mexico is not 
stronger this day than she has ever been ; more united, more natural- 
ized; more concentrated in one public feeling; looking more unitedly 
towards a single leader. From this state of things, if it does indeed 
exist. Congress ought to derive a deeper and more impressive sense of 
its duty in relation to this war, and of its duty now." 

Passing to consider the attitude taken by the Whig- 
party with reference to the war, he proceeded : 

"As a Whig, do I still occupy a place on this floor; nor do I think 
it Avorth while to reply to such a charge as that the Whigs are not 
friends of their country, because -many of them doubt the justice or 
expediency of the present war. Surely, there was more evidence of 
the patriotism of the man, who, doubting the expediency and even the 
entire justice of the war, nevertheless supported it, because it was the 



38 ^IIE LIFE OP 

war of his countr)'. In the one it might be mere enthusiasm, and an 
impetuous temperament ; in the other it was true patriotism, a sense 
of duty. Homer represents Hector as strongly doubting the expedi- 
ency of the war against Gi'eece — gave his advice against it — had no 
sympathy with Paris, whom he bitterly reproached, much less with 
Helen ; yet, when the war came, and the Grecian forces were marshalled 
on the plain, and their crooked keels were seen cutting the sands of 
the Trojan coast, Hector was a flaming fire — his beaming helmet was 
seen in the thickest of the fight. There are in the American army 
many who have the spirit of Hector ; who strongly doubt the propriety 
of the war, and especially the manner of its commencement ; who, 
yet, are ready to pour out their hearts' best blood like water, and their 
lives with it, on a foreign shore, in defence of the American flag, and 
American glory." 

Considering the question of advance, ^he condition of 
the army and what it would accomplish, he said : 

"Then there is another thing which ought to be well considered:, 
whatever advance our forces make, must be made during the coming 
winter. The reasons must be obvious. Less than six months ago 
Congress had sent into the field as many as twenty regiments of volun- 
teers, all burning with the most exalted hopes, and ready to peril their 
all, health, reputation, and even life itself^ — not in a defensive, but in 
an invasive war — not undertaken to defend their own homes and fire- 
sides, but for the glory of the American name and arms. Alas, how 
many of those fine young men who had never seen a battle — never had 
cast their stern glance on the countenance of an enemy, were now 
sleeping their last long sleep on the banks of the Rio Grande. Once 
their hearts heaved high with a soldier's fondest hopes — proud and 
high had been their measured footsteps, as they marched in all the 
buoyancy of youthful ambition, but now — 

"Where rolls the rushing Rio Grande, 

How peacefully they sleep ; 
They did not fall in bloody strife. 
Upon a well fought field ; 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 39 

Not from the red wound poured the life 

Where cowering foeman yield. 
The archangel's shade was slowly cast 

Upon each polished brow, 
But calm and fearless to the last 

They sleep securely now." 

"The bones of nearly two thousand young men, in whose veins 
some of the best blood of the country flowed, are now resting in the 
mold, on the banks of the Rio Grande — who had never seen the face 
of an enemy, and who had never had the opportunity of striking one 
manly blow in behalf of their country and their race." * -Jf * *. 

" I can pledge myself for the army that it will do its duty, its whole 
duty, to the country. It is burning for the advance ; it pants for such 
another conflict as that at Monterey beneath the walls of Mexico, but 
at the same time it desires peace — honorable peace — a peace conquered 
by our arms. I believe that, if suitably sustained, the army will con- 
quer that peace, and sign it within the palaces of Mexico within the 
next four months." 

After making this stirring speech, for which he was 
highly comjDlimented by the advocates of the war, 
Baker left Washington, and rejoined his regiment 
on the Eio G-rande. Shortly thereafter, he was trans- 
ferred from Gen. Taylor's to Gen. Scott's military 
department, and arrived in time to share in the short, 
yet victorious siege of Vera Cruz. 

He went forward into the interior of Mexico with the 
main body of Gen. Scott's army, and bravely led his 
men to the charge under the " leaden hail" and " sheeted 
fire," which rained upon them from the frowning and 
embattled heights of Cerro Gordo. When the intrepid 
and chivalrous General Shields fell at the head of his 



40 ^E LIFE OF 

brigade, badly wounded, Col. Baker immediately assum- 
ed comitiand of the same, made a gallant charge upon 
the enemy's works, turned their flank, drove them from 
their position, and contributed materially towards win- 
ning that splendid victory which forms one of the 
brightest chapters in the history of the Mexican war, 
and an unfading laurel in General Scott's chaplet of fame. 

ISTot long after the battle of Cerro Gordo, the term of 
enlistment of Col. Baker's regiment expired, and the 
men not desiring to re-enlist, were mustered out of 
service. He was, therefore, reluctantly, compelled to 
quit the field before the successful termination of the war. 

HE REMOVES TO GALENA — IS RE-ELECTED TO CONGRESS. 

Eeturning home, he resumed the practice of his i:)ro- 
fession. But he was too much a man of action to long 
remain in the secluded paths of private or jDrofessional 
life. Seeing no immediate prospect of political prefer- 
ment in the congressional district which he had formerly 
represented, (Mr. Lincoln having .taken his place) he 
removed, in the Spring of 1848, to Galena, Illinois — 
up into the lead-bearing region. Such was his skill 
and address as a politician, and such his peculiar tact 
for winning popular favor, that, after a residence in 
Galena of only about three months, he was returned to 
Congress from that district, by a majority over his 
Democratic competitor of 1,000 votes — a feat, which, 
at the time, perhaps, no one but Baker would have 
undertaken, much less successfully accomplished. But 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 41 

he had one of those pliable temperaments which, Proteus- 
like, could easily adapt itself to the tastes and temper 
of the people of any district in which he happened to 
reside ; and he happened, temporarily at least, to reside 
in a good many. 

As one of the Whig electors for the State at large, 
Col. Baker was also active in the Presidential campaign 
of 1848, advocating with characteristic zeal and energy, 
the claims of his old commander, Zachary Taylor. Few 
men were more effective on the stump, in the heat of a 
political canvass. The masses admired him for his 
talents and valor, whilst they loved him for his easy 
familiarity and agreeable social qualities. His speeches 
w^ere clear, pointed, and eloquent presentations of his 
political views, abounding in happy hits and well turned 
periods, and alwaj's captivated the crowd. He dealt 
unsparingly with his opponents; and if at a loss for 
arguments to sustain his position, he would overwhelm 
them with ridicule and sarcastic wit. 

Col. Baker took his seat for the second time in the 
federal House of Eepresentatives in December, 1849, 
He bore an active, if not a conspicuous part in the 
debates upon those grave national issues which formed 
so prominent a "feature in the first session of the 31st 
Congress, and Avhich so profoundly agitated the country 
at that time. He was understood to favor some of the 
measures of Compromise passed by Congress during 
this session. Most of them, however, failed to command 
his approbation or support. The annexed paragraph, 
taken from a speech made by him on these historic 
questions, was prophetic of his future fate ; 



k 



42 #^ LIFE OP 

'• I have only to say, that, if the time should come 
when disunion rules the hour, and discord reigns supreme, 
I shall again be ready to give the best blood in my veins 
to my country's cause. I shall be prepared to meet all 
antagonists, Avith lance in rest, to do battle in every 
land in defense of the Constitution of the country, 
which I have sworn to support to the last extremity, 
against disunionists, and all its enemies, whether North 
or South — to meet them everywhere, at all times, with 
speech or hand, with word or blow, until thought and 
being shall be mine no longer." 



HIS EULOGIUM ON PRESIDENT TAYLOR. 

During the same session of this Congress, on the 10th 
of July, 1850, Mr. Baker delivered a glowing and 
pathetic eulogy on the career and character of Presi- 
dent Taylor, Avho had expired at the Executive mansion 
on the day previous. This unexpected and painful 
event cast a gloom over the entire land, and drew forth 
appropriate and feeling addresses from the most eminent 
orators of the Senate and House of Eepresentatives. 
Yet for purity and beauty of diction, felicity of illustra- 
tion, and accuracy in portraying the character of the 
illustrious deceased, Baker's panegyric was unsurpassed, 
if, indeed, equalled by any pronounced on the floor of 
either House. It is probably the finest specimen of his 
eloquence extant, and sparkles like a gem amongst the 
ordinarily dry details of the Congressional Glol)0. He 
spoke as follows : 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 43 

** Mr. Speaker: It is often said of sorrow, that, like deatli, it levels 
all distinctions. The humblest heart can heave a sisrh as deep as the 
proudest ; and I avail myself of this mournful privilege to swell the 
accents of grief which have been poured forth to-day, with u larger 
though not more sincere utterence. 

"A second time since the foundation of this Government, a Presi- 
dent of the United States has been stricken by death in the performance 
of his duties. The blow which strikes the man, falls upon the nation's 
hearty and the words of saddened praise which fall on our ears to-day, 
and here, are but echoes of the thoughts which throng in the hearts 
of millions that mourn him everywhere. 

" You have no doubt observed, sir, that in the first moments of a 
great loss, the instincts of affection prompt us to summon up the 
great and good qualities of those for whom we weep. It is a wise 
ordination of Divine Providence, A generous pride tempers and 
restrain! the bitterness of grief, and noble deeds and heroic virtues 
shed a consoling light upon the tomb. It is in this spirit that I recur 
for an instant, and an instant only, to the events of a history fresh in 
in the memory of the nation, and the world. The late President of 
the United States has devoted his whole life to the service of his 
country. Of a nature singularly unambitious, he seems to have com- 
bined the utmost gentleness of manner, with the greatest firmness of 
purpose. For more than thirty years, the duties of his station confined 
him to a sphere, where only those who knew him most intimately, 
could perceive the qualities, which danger quickened and brightened 
into sublimity and grandeur. 

" In the late war with Great Britain, he was but a captain ; yet the 
little band who defended Fort Harrison, saw, amid the smoke of battle, 
that they were commanded by a man fit for his station. In the Florida 
campaign, he commanded but a brigade ; yet his leadership not only 
evinced courage, but his conduct inspired this quality in the breast of 
the meanest soldier in the ranks. He begun the Mexican campaign 
at the head of only a division ; yet as the events of the war swelled 
that division into an arsiiy, so the crisis kindled him into higher 
resolves and nobler actions, till the successive steps of advance, 
l)«came the assured marcl* of victorv. 



4-1 THE LIFE OF 

"As we review the brilliant and stirring passages of the events to 
which I refer, it is not in the power of sudden grief to suppress the 
admiration whicli thrills our hearts. When, sir, has there been such 
a campaign ? When such soldiers to be led ? and when such qualities 
of leadership so variously combined ? How simple, and yet how grand 
the announcement : ' In whatever force the enemy may be, I shall 
fight him.' It gave Palo-Alto, and Resaca to our banner. How stead- 
fast the resolution that impelled the advance to Monterey ! How 
stirring the courage which beleaguered the frowning city ; which 
stormed the barricaded street ; which carried the embattled heights, 
and won, and kept the whole. Nor, Sir, can we forget that in the flush 
of victory the gentle heart stayed the bold hand, while the conquering 
soldier offered sacrifices on the alter of pity, amid all the exaltation 
of triumph. 

" Sir, I may not stop to speak of the achievements of Buena Vista. 
They are deeds that will never die. It was the great event of the age 
— a contest of races, and institutions. An army of volunteers, engaged 
not in an impetuous advance, but in a last extremity — men, who had 
never seen fire, faced the foe with the steadiness of veterans. Sir, as 
long as those frowning heights and bloody ravines shall remain, these 
recollections will endure ; and with them the name of the man who 
steadied every rank, and kindled every eye by the indomitable resolu- 
tion which would not yield, and the exalted spirit which rose highest 
amid the greatest perils. 

" Is was from scenes like these he was called to the Chief Magistracy. 
It was a summons unexpected and unsought — the spontaneous express- 
ion of a noble confidence — the just reward of great actions. 

" It may not be proper, here and now, to speak of the manner in 
which the new duties were executed ; but I may say, that here, as 
elsewhere, he exhibited the same firmness which has marked his 
life. He was honest, and unostentatious ; he obeyed the law, and 
loved the constitution; he dealt with difficult questions with .a single- 
ness of purpose which is the truest pilot amid storms. Nor can it be 
doubted that when impartial history shall record the events of his 
administration, they will be found worthy of his life, and a firm foun- 
dation for his future renown. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 45 

**You remember, Mr. Speaker, that when the great Athenian 
philosopher was inquired of by the Lydian king, as to who was the 
happiest among- men, he declared that no man should be declared 
happy until his death. The President of the United States has so 
finished a noble life, as to justify the pride and admiration of his 
countrymen ; he has faced the last enemy with a manly firmness, and 
a becoming resolution. He died, where an American citizen would 
most desire to die — not amid embattled hosts, and charging squadrons 
— but amidst weeping friends, and an anxious nation — in the house 
provided by its gratitude, only to be taken thence to a * house not 
mad« with hands, eternal in the Heavens.' 

*' Sir, in the death which has caused so much dismay, there is a 
becoming resemblance to the life which has created so much confidence. 
His closing hours were marked with a beautiful calmness ; his last 
expressions indicated a manly sense of his own worth, and a conscious- 
ness that he had done his duty. Nor can I omit to remark, that it is 
this sense of the obligations of duty, which appears to have been the 
true basis of his character. In boyhood, and in age ; as a captain, and 
as a general; whether defending a fort againstsavages, or exercising the 
functions of Chief Magistrate, duty, rather than glory, self approval, 
rather than renown, have prompted the deeds which have made him 
immortal. 

" The character upon which death has just set its seal, is filled with 
beautiful and impressive contrasts. A warrior, a man of action, he 
sighed for retirement. Amid the events which crowned him with fame , 
he counselled a withdawal of our troops. And whether at the head of 
armies, or in the chair of State, he appeared as utterly unconscious of 
his great renown, as if no banner had drooped at his loord ; as if no 
gleam of glory had shown through his whitened hah\ 

*' It is related of Epaminonidas, that when fatally wounded at the 
battle of Mantinea, they bore him to a height, from whence, with fiiding 
glance, he surveyed the fortunes of the fight ; and when the field was 
won laid himself down to die. The friends who had gathered around 
him, wept his early tail, and passionately expressed their sorrow that 
he had died childless. ' Not so,' said the hero with his last breath, 



46 ^E LIFE OF 

* for do I not leave two fair daughters, Leuctre, and Mantinea,' Gen. 
Taylor is more fortunate, since he leaves an excellent, and most worthy 
family to deplore his loss, and inlierit his glory. Nor is he fortunate 
in tliis only, since, like Epaniinonidas, ho leaves not only two, but four 
battles, Palo Alto, Resaca, Monterey, and Buena Vista— the grand 
creations of his genius and valor, to be remembered as long as truth 
and courage appeal to the human heart. 

"Mr. Speaker, the occasion and the scene impress upon us a deep 
sense of the instability of all human affairs, so beautifully alluded to 
by my friend from^^Massachusetts, (Mr. Winthrop.) The great South- 
ern Senator is no longer among us. The President during whose 
administration the war commenced, ' sleeps in the house appointed for 
all the living,' and the great soldier who had led the advance, and 
assured the triumph, ' lies like a warrior taking his rest.' Ah! sir, if 
iv thin assembly there is a raan ivhose heart heats with innwltuons, and 
unrestrained ambition, let him lo-day standby the bier on v^liich that lifeless 
body is laidy and learn how much of human greatness fuks in an hour. 
But if there be another liere, whose fainting heart shrinks from a noble 
purpose, let him too, visit those sacred remains, to be reminded hmo much 
t/iere is in true glory that can never ri/f." 

THE PANAMA RAILROAD. 

Ill the beginning of the year 1851, Colonel Baker's 
restless and original mind seized upon an enterprise as 
" wild as it was engaging." He entered into an agreement 
with the Panama Eailroad Company, of New York, to 
grade a portion of that great inter-oceanic line of com- 
munication known as the Panama Railroad. Pursuant 
to this agreement, he collected a company of about 400 
laborers, in the West, and sent them in charge of his 
brother, Dr. Alfred Baker, to the Isthmus of Panama. 
He soon thereafter sailed himself to Navy Bay, (now 
Aspinwall) the Atlantic terminous of the road, to super- 
intend his work. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 47 

Here, under the vertical rays of an equator's sun, 
amidst the tangled forests and luxuriant vegetation of 
the Isthmus, with its interminable swamps, teeming 
with noxious insects, venomous reptiles, and reeking 
w^th deadly malaria, or beside the slimy banks of the 
tortuous river, Chagres, Baker and his hardy band, 
labored and toiled for many weary months, until most 
of them were either disabled from further service, or 
had fallen victims to the malarious fevers of the tropics. 
At last their gallant leader fell sick, nigh unto death ; 
was compelled to give up his undertaking, abandon the 
country, and return home to recruit his shattered energies. 

The building of the Panama Railroad was an enter- 
prise of such magnitude and importance, that we have 
thought proper to give a brief outline of its history, 
before proceeding further with our narrative. 

The daring project of connecting the Atlantic and 
Pacific oceans, by a line of railway across the Isthmus 
of Darien or Panama, was conceived by Mr. William 
H. Aspinwall, a large-minded capitalist of the city of 
New York, in 1848. He had already taken a contract 
for the establishment of a line of steamships on the 
Pacific, from Panama to California, to be run in connec- 
tion with a similar line on the Atlantic, to New York. 
Having satisfied himself of the entire feasibility of the 
enterj-jrise, Mr. Aspinwall, together with Mr. Henry 
Chauncey, and Mr. John L. Stephens, formed a contract 
with the G-overnment of New Grranada for the construc- 
tion of the road, which was to be completed in eight 
years. 



48 ift 



LIFE OF 



Up to this time, (the latter part of 1848) calculations 
for the ultimate success of the undertaking, were based 
upon the advantages it would afford in shortening by 
many thousand miles, not only the route to California 
and Oregon, but to China, Australia, and the . East 
Indias, and in the development of the rich countries 
bordering the Pacific coast. The discovery of gold in 
California, however, with its accompanying tide of 
emigration across the Isthmus, changed the prospects 
of the projected road, and from an enterprise which 
looked far into the future for its rewards, it became one 
promising immediate returns from the capital and labor 
invested. A charter was now obtained from the Legis- 
lature of the State of jS'ew York, for the formation of 
a stock company, under which one million dollars ot 
stock was soon taken — the original grantees having^ 
meanwhile, transferred their contract into the hands of 
this company. In the early part of 1849, a large and 
experienced party of engineers was sent down to the 
Isthmus to survey and locate the line of the road. 
This difficult task being satisfactorily accomplished, a 
contract was then entered into with Messrs. George M- 
Totten, and John C. Trautwine for the building of the 
road. Subsequently, these gentlemen were released 
from their obligations as contractors, at their own 
request, but retained as engineers — the company having 
concluded to take charge of the construction themselves. 
Under the superintendence, mainly, of these bold, skil- 
ful and determined engineers, the work was commenced 
in May, 1850, and pushed forward with remarkable 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 



49 



vigor, despite the most formidable obstacles, and dis- 
piriting influences. As the work progressed, laborers 
were drawn from almost every quarter of the globe? 
great numbers of whom perished by exposure in the 
terrible marshes on the Atlantic slope of the Isthmus, 
and with the deadly fevers incident to the country. 
At length, after the expenditure of several million dol- 
lars, and the sacrifice of thousands of lives, the last 
rail of the road was laid at midnight, on the 27th of 
January, 1855, and, on the following day, a locomotive 
passed over it from .ocean to ocean — a distance of fifty 
miles. 

Thus was built and completed this great commercial 
highway of nations — a w^ork which will endure for 
centuries, a noble monument to the memories of the 
men who had the genius to contrive, and the ability, 
courage, and perseverance to carry it to a successful 
termination.* 

COLONEL BAKER IN CALIFORNIA. 

When the bracing air of the Illinois prairies had 
restored Baker to something of his accustomed health 
and vigor, he turned his gaze eagerly towards the golden 
sands of the Pacific coast, whither the wave of emigra- 
tion was then swiftly rolling. Heaps of untold wealth 
and political honors higher than any he had yet attained, 
n rose alternately before his excited imagination, and 
allured him Avestward to the land of promise. 



*The above account is chiefly condensed from an able article on the Panama 
Eailroad, piiblished in Harpers' Magazine tor January, 1859. 



50 T^ LIFE OF 

111 1852, he cmigriited Avith his family to California. 
Establishing himself in San Francisco, he once more 
resumed the practice of law. His fame as an advocate 
and orator had preceded him, so that he soon found 
himself in the midst of an extensive and diversified 
business. Almost at one bound, and apparently' witli 
but little effort, he rose to the summit of his profession, 
and to a share in the best practice in the courts of that 
youthful commercial metropolis. This position he 
retained with comparative ease during the peri(xl of his 
residence in San Francisco. ' Here it was that he achieved 
his highest reputation as a lawyer, and perhaps his 
most brilliant renown as an orator. 

He might now be considered a prosperous man. His 
clients were numerous, and constantly increasing. His 
income was large — for he always charged good fees — 
and his means ample to live in a style befitting a man 
of prudence, taste and refinement. But all the gold of 
the new El Dorado would hardly have sufficed for 
Baker. With heedless improvidence he spent all he earned, 
and something more. Hence, there were times when 
he revelled in luxur}^ and other times, again, Avhen he 
had scarcely a penny in his purse. 

He early identified himself with the Free Soil move- 
ment in California, and became conspicuous as a leader 
of the party opposed to the extension of slavery. In 
1855, he was a candidate of that party for the State 
Senate, and made a stirring canvass ; but the Democracy 
being largely in the majority, he sustained a Waterloo 
defeat. In 1856, he was one of the first to unfurl the 
Fremont and Dayton banner on the Pacific slope, and 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 51 

daiiiitlessly led the forlorn hope of the Eepiiblicans in 
that spirited Presidential contest. Subsequently, he 
was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress. These 
repeated defeats, in successive campaigns, were enough 
to have discouraged and deterred an ordinary politician. 
But with Baker they were simply incidents of the 
day, and served rather to inspire him to renewed and 
more determined effort. He loved the excitements of 
political controversy, and was perfcctl}^ at home on the 
hustings. Among the rude, reckless miners and squat- 
ters, in the diggings and ranches of the Golden State, 
he was always a popular stump speaker, though but 
few of them felt any sympathy for the jwlitical princi- 
ples he so ably advocated. " Those w^ho are acquainted 
only with his more grave senatorial efforts, can form 
no adequate idea of the ready, sparkling, ebulliant wit 
— the glancing and playful satire, mirthful while merci- 
less — the keen syllogisms, and the sharp sophisms whose 
fallacies, though undiscoverable, were preplexing — and 
the sudden splendors of eloquence that formed the 
wonderful charm of his back-woods harangues. His 
fame became co-extensive with the coast ; and the peo- 
ple in allusion to his gray bald head, which all knew^ 
used to call him the 'Gray Eagle.' ''* 

HIS CELEBRATED ORATION ON THE DEATH OF SENATOR 
BRODERICK. 

On the 16th of September, 1859, Senator David G. 
Broderick, the chief of the Douglas Democracy in Cali- 
fornia, fell mortally wounded in a duel w4th Judge Terry, 

*Skctch of Col. Bakel', by John Hay. Harpers' Magazine for December, 1861. 



52 mE LIFE OP 

of the same State, — who was a prominent adherent of 
the Buchanan, or administration wing of that party. 
This unfortunate conflict was engendered by the use of 
unguarded expressions of a personal character, by the 
deceased, towards Judge Terry, which were inflamed by 
the bitter political contest then just terminated iii that 
State. Colonel Baker had been associated with Brod- 
crick in the campaign, and was also one of his warmest 
personal friends. By common consent he now became 
the funeral orator. 

The body of the stricken Senator was conveyed from 
the bloody field to the central Plaza of San Francisco, 
clad in the habiliments of the grave. The news of his 
tragic fate had spread rapidly through the streets and 
lanes of that crowded city, creating a profound sensation. 
A vast concourse of people soon thronged the square, 
and stood with awe-struck and solemn mien, in the 
presence of the lifeless form of the Tribune. Aloft 
the bells were ringing mournfally, " and their Avild 
lament floating down to earth, deepened the emotion of 
the hour." The sad, unusual, and most impressive 
scene, was one well calculated to inspire the orator to 
the highest exertion of his powers. It bore no fixint 
resemblance to another and greater spectacle, in another 
country, and more heroic age, when Mark Antony 
stood over the mangled corpse of the great Caesar, in the 
Roman Forum, and pronounced that matchless funeral 
oration, which has been so beautifully embalmed in verse 
by the immortal bard of Avon. 

Amidst the silence, and subdued grief of the multi- 
tude, Colonel Baker rose and said : 



EDWARD D. BAKER, 53 

** Citizens of California ! A Senator lies dead in our midst. He is 
wrapped in a bloody shroud, and Ave to whom his toils and cares were 
given, are about to bear him to the place appointed for all the living. 
It is not fit that such a man should pass to the tomb unheralded ; it is^ 
not fit that such a life should steal unnoticed to its close ; it is not fit 
that such a death should call forth no rebuke, or be surrounded by no 
public lamentation. It is this conviction which impells the gathering 
of this assemblage. We are here of every station and pursuit, of every 
creed and character, each in his capacity of citizen, to swell the mourn- 
ful tribute which the majesty of the people offers to the unreplying 
dead. He lies to-day surrounded by little funeral pomp. No banners 
droop above the bier ; no melancholy music floats upon the reluctant 
air. The hopes of high-hearted friends droop like the fading floAvers 
upon his breast, and the struggling sigh compels the tear in eyes that 
seldom weep. Around him are those who have known him best, and 
loved him longest ; who have shared the triumph and endured the 
defeat. Near him are the gravest and noblest of the State, possessed 
by a grief at once earnest and sincere, while beyond, the masses of the 
people, whom he loved, and for whom his life was given, gather like a 
thunder-cloud of swelling and indignant grief. In such a presence, 
fellow citizens, let us linger for a moment at the portals of the tomb, 
whose shadowy arches vibrate to the public heart, to speak a few brief 
words of the man, of his life, and of his death. 

" Mr. Broderick Avas born in the District of Columbia, in 1819 ; he 
he was of Irish descent, and|of respectable, though obscure parentage ; 
he had little of early advantages, and never summoned to his aid a 
complete and finished education. His boyhood — as indeed his early 
manhood — Avas passed in the city of New York, and the loss of his 
father early stimulated him to the efforts which maintained his surviv- 
ing mother and brother, and served also to fix and form his character, 
even in his boyhood. His love for his mother was his first and most 
distinctive trait of character ; and when his brother died — an early 
and sudden death — the shock gave a serious and reflective cast to his 
habits and his thoughts, Avhich marked them to the last hours of his life. 
*' He was always filled Avith pride, and energy, and ambition ; his 
pride Avas in the manliness and force of his character, and no man had 



54 IpK LIFE OP 

more reason. His energy was manifest in the most resolute struggles 
with poverty and obscurity, and his ambition impelled him to seek a 
foremost plact3 in the great race of honora,ble power. Up to the time 
of his arrival in California, his life had been passed amid events inci' 
dent to such a character. Fearless, self-reliant, open in his enmities, 
warm in his friendship, wedded to his opinions, and marching directly 
to his purpose, through, and over all opposition, his career was 
chequered with success and defeat. But even in defeat his energies 
were strengthened and his character developed. When he readied 
these shores, his keen observation taught him at once, that he trod a 
broad field, and that a high career was before him. He had no false 
pride — sprung from a people, and of a race, wliose vocation was labor — 
he toiled with his own hands, and sprang at a bound, from the work- 
shop to the legislative hall. From that hour, there congregated around 
him, and against him, the elements of success and defeat — strong 
friendships, bitter enmities, high praise and malignant calumnies ; but he 
trod with a free and a proud step that onward path which has led him 
to glory and the grave. 

"It would be idle for me, at this hour, and in this piece, to speak 
of all that history with unmitigated praise ; it will be idle for his ene- 
mies hereafter to deny his claim to noble virtues and high purposes. 
When in the Legislature, be boldly denounced the special legislation, 
which is the curse of a new country, he proved his courage and his 
rectitude. When he opposed tlie various and sometimes successful 
schemes to strike out the salutary provisions of the constitution which 
guarded free labor, he was true to all the better instincts of his life. 
When prompted by his ambition and the admiration of his friends, 
he first sought a seat in the Senate of the United Strtes, he sought 
the highest of all positions by legitimate effort, and failed with honor. 
It is my duty to say, that, in my judgment, when, at a later period he 
sought to anticipate the Senatorial election, he committed an error, 
which 1 think he lived to regret. It would have been a violation of 
the true principles of representative government, which no reason, 
public or private, could justify, and could never have met the perma- 
nent approval of good and wise men. Yet, while I say this over his 
bier, let me remind you of the temptation to such an error, of the 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 55 

plans and reasons wliich prompted it, and of the many good purposes 
it was intended to efifect. And if ambition, the ' last infirmity of 
noble minds,' led him for a moment from the better path, let me 
remind you how nobly he returned to it. It is impossible to speak 
within the limits of this address, of the events of that session of 
the Legislature at which he was elected to the Senate of the United 
States ; but some things should not be passed in silence here. The 
contest between himself and the present Senator had been bitter and 
personal. He had triumphed f he had been powerfully sustained by 
his friends, and stood confessedly the ' first in honor, and the first in 
place.' He yielded to an appeal made to his magnanimity by his foe. 
If he judged unwisely, he has paid the forfeit well. Never in the his- 
tory of political warfare, has any man been so pursued. Never iias 
malignity so exhausted itself. 

" Fellow citizens, the man who lies before you was your Senator. 
From the moment of his election, his character has been malinged, his 
motives attacked, his courage impeached, his patriotism assailed. It 
has been a system tending to one end, imd the end in heYc. What was 
his crime ? Review his history, consider his public acts, weigh his 
private character, and before the grave encloses him forever, judge 
between him and his enemies. As a man to be judged in his private 
relations, who was his superior ? It was his boast — and amid the 
general license of a new country, it was a proud one — that his most 
scrutinizing enemy, could fix no single act of immorality upon him. 

Temperate, decorous, self-i-estrained, he had passed through all the 
excitements of California unstained. No man could charge him with 
broken faith or violated trust. Of habits simple and inexpensive, he 
had no lust of gain. He overreached no man's Aveakness in a bargain, 
and withheld no man his just dues. Never, in the history of the 
State, has there been a citizen who has borne public relations more 
stainless in all respects than he. But it is not by this standard he is 
to be judged. He was a public man, and his memory demands a pul)- 
lic judgment. What was his public crime ? The answer is hi his own 
words : ' They have killed me because I was opposed to the extention 
of slavery, and a corrupt administration.' Fellow citizens, they are 
remarkable words, uttered at a very remarkable moment; they involve 



56 JpE LIFE OF 

the history of his Senatorial career, and of its sad and bloody termination. 
When Mr. Brodcrick entered the Senate, he had been elected at the 
beginning of a Presidential terra as a friend of the President elect, 
having undoubtedly been one of his most influential supporters. There 
were, unquestionably, some things in the exercise of the appointing 
power which he could have wished otherwise ; but he had every reason 
with the Administration which could be supposed to weigh with a man 
in liis position. He had heartily maintained the doctrine of popular 
sovereignty asset forth in the Cincinnati platform, and he never waver- 
ed in his support till the day of his death. But, when, in his judgement 
the President betrayed his obligations to the party and the country ; 
when, in the whole series of acts in relation to Kansas, he proved rec- 
reant to his pledges and instructions ; when the whole power of the 
Administration was brought to bear upon the legislative branch of the 
Government in order to force slavery upon an unwilling people, then, 
in the high performance of his duty as a Senator, he rebuked the 
Administration by his voice, and his vote, and stood by his principles. 
It is true he adopted no halfway measures. He threw the whole weight 
of his character into the ranks of the opposition ; he endeavored to 
rouse the people to an indignant sense of the iniquitous tyranny of the 
Federal power, and kindling with the contest, became its fiercest and 
firmest opponent. 

" Fellow citizens, whatever may have been your political predilec- 
tions, it is impossible to repress your admiration as you review the 
conduct of the man who lies hushed in death before you. You read 
in his history a glorious imitation of the great popular leader who 
opposed the despotic influence of power in other lands and in our own. 
AVhen John Hampden died, at Chalgrovefield, he sealed his devotion 
to popular liberty with his blood. The eloquence of Fox found the 
source of its inspiration in his love of the people. When Senators 
conspired against Tiberius Gracchus, and the Tribune of the people 
fell beneath their daggers, it was power that prompted the crime and 
demanded the sacrifice. Who can doubt, if your Senator had surren- 
dered his free thoughts, and bent in submission to the rule of the 
Administration, who can doubt that instead of resting on a bloody 
bier, he would this day have been reposing in the inglorious felicitude 
of Presidential sunshine? 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 57 

"Fellow citizens, lot no man suppose that the death of the eminent 
citizen of whom I speak, was caused by any otlier reason than that to 
which his own words assign it. It has been long foreshadowed. It 
was predicted by his friends ; it was threatened by his enemies ; it 
was the consequence of intense political hatred. His death Avas a 
political necessity, poorly veiled under the guise of a private quarrel. 
Here, in his own State, among those who witnessed the late canvass, 
who knew the contending leaders — among those who knew the antago- 
nists on the bloody ground, here the public conviction is so thoroughly 
settled, that nothing need be said. Tested by the correspondence 
itself, there was no cause in morals, in honor, in taste, by any code, by 
the custom of any civilized land, there Avas no cause for blood. Let 
me repeat the story ; it is brief as it is fatal : a Judge of the Supreme 
Court descends into a political convention — it is just, however, to say 
that the occasion Avas to return thanks to his friends for an unsuccess- 
ful support. In a speecli bitter and personal, he stigmatized Senator 
Broderick and all his friends in words of contemptuous insult. When 
jMr. Broderick saw that speech, he retorted, saying, in substance, that 
he had heretolbre spoken of Judge Terry as an honest man, but that 
he now took it back. AVlien inquired of, he admitted that he had so 
said, and connected his words with Judge Terry's speech as prompting 
them. So far as Judge Terry, personally, was concerned, this was the 
cause of mortal combat ; there was no other. In the contest, which 
has just terminated in the State, Mr. Broderick had taken a leading 
part ; he had been engaged in controversies very personal in their 
nature, because the subjects of public discussion had involved the 
character and conduct of many public and distinguished men. But 
Judge Terry was not one of them. He was no contestant ; his conduct 
Avas not at issue ; he had been mentioned but once incidentally — in reply 
to his OAvn attack — and, except as it might be found in his peculiar 
traits, or peculiar fitness, there Avas no reason to suppose that he Avould 
seek any man's blood. When William of Nassau, the deliverer of 
Holland, died in the presence of his Avife and children, the hand that 
struck the blow was not nerved by private vengeance. When the 
fourth Henry passed unharmed amid the dangers of the field of Ivry, 



58 :Mft: life of 

to perish in tlie streets of his capital by a fanatic, ho did not seek to 
avenge a private grief. An exaggerated sense of personal honor — a 
weak mind with choleric passions, intense sectional prejudice, united 
■with great confidence in the use of arms — these sometimes serve to 
siinudate tlie instruments which accomplish the deepest and deadliest 
purposes. 

*' Fellow citizens ! One year ago I performed a duty such as I per- 
form to-day, over the remains of Senator Ferguson,^ v/ho died as 
Broderick died, tangled in the meshes of the code of honor. To-day 
there is another and moi-e eminent sacrifice. To-day I renew my pro- 
test ; to-day I utter yours. The code of honor is a delusion and a 
snare ; it palters with the hope of a true courage, and binds it at the 
feet of crafty and cruel skill. It surrounds its victim with the pomp 
and grace of the procession, but leaves him bleeding on the altar. It 
substitutes cold and deliberate preparations for courageous and manly 
impulse, and arms the one to disarm the other; it may prevent fraud 
between practiced duelists, Avho should be forever Avithout its pale, but 
it makes the mere ' trick of the weapon' superior to the noblest cause 
and the truest courage. Its pretence of equality is a lie ; it is equal 
in all the form, it is unjust in all the substance — tlie haljitudo of 
arms, the early training, the frontier life, the border war, the b^octional 
custom, the life of leisure — all these are advantages which no negotia- 
tions can neutralize, and which no courage can overcome. 

'* But, fellow citizens, the protest is not only spoken in your words 
and mine ; it is written in indelible characters ; it is written in the 
blood of Gilbert, in the blood of Furguson, in the blood of Broderick, 
and the inscription will not altogetlier fade. With the administration 
of the code in this particular case, I am not here to deal. Amid pas- 
sionate grief let us strive to be just. I give no currency to the rumors 
of which personally I know nothing; there are other tribunals to 
which they may well be referred, and this is not one of them ; but I 
am here to say that whateverin the code of honor or out of it demands 
or allows a deadly combat, where there is not in all things entire and 

^Formerly a brilliant young lawyer of Springfield, Illinois. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 59 

certain equality, is a prostitution of the name, is an invasion of the 
substance, and is a shield blazoned with the name of chivalry to cover 
tlie malignity of murder. And now, as the shadows turn towards 
the East, and we prepare to bear these poor remains to their silent 
resting place, let us not seek to repress the generous pride which 
prompts a recital of noble deeds and manly virtues. He rose unaided 
and alone ; he began his career without family or fortune, in the face 
of difficulties; he inherited poverty and obscurity; he died a Senator 
in Congress, having Avritten his name in the history of the great 
struggle for the rights of the people against the despotism of organiza- 
tion, and the corruption of powei*. He leaves in the hearts of his 
friends the tenderest and the proudest of recollections. He was 
honest, faithful, earnest, sincere, generous and brave ; he felt in all 
the great crises of his life that he was a leader in the ranks, and for 
the rights of the masses of men, and he could not falter. 

" When he i^eturned from that fatal field, while the dark wing of 
the archangel of death was casting her shadows upon his brow, his 
greatest anxiety was as to the performance of his duty. He felt that 
all his strength, and all his life, belonged to the cause to which he had 
devoted them, 

*' * Baker,' said he — and to me they were his last words — ' Baker, 
when I was struck, I tried to stand firm, but the blow blinded me, and 
I could not.' I trust that it is no shame to my manhood to say, that 
tears blinded me as he said it. 

*' Of his last hours, I have no heart to speak. He was the last of his 
race ; there was no kindred hand to smooth his couch, or wipe the 
death-damps from his brow ; but around that dying bed, strong men, 
the friends of early manhood, the devoted adherents of later life, bowed 
in irrepressible grief, and lifted up their voices and wept. 

" But, fellow citizens, the voice of lamentation is not uttered by 
private fiiendship alone ; the blow that struck his manly breast, has 
touched the heart of a people, and as the sad tidings spread, a general 
gloom prevails. Who now shall speak for California ? Who be the 
interpreter of the wants of the Pacific coast ? Who can appeal to the 



60 1^ LIFE OF 

communities of the Atlantic who love free labor ? Who can speak for 
the masses of men, Avith a passionate love for the classes from whence 
he sprung? Who can defy the blandishments of power, the indolence 
of office, the corruption of administrations? What hopes are buried 
with him in the grave ? 

"Ah ! who that gallant spirit shall resume, 

Leap from Eurota's bank and call us from the tomb." 

" But the last tvord must be spoken, and the imperious mandate of death 
must be fulfilled. T/iiis, Of brave Jieart ^ ive bear thee to thy rest ! Thus, 
surrounded by tens of thousands, we leave thee to the equal grave. As in 
life no other voice among us so rang its trumpet blast upon the ear of free- 
men, so in death its echoes will 7'eijerberate amid our tnountahis and valleys, 
until truth and valor eease4o appeal to the human heart. 

His love of truth, too warm, too strong, 

For hope or fear to chain or chill, 
His hate of tyranny and wrong, 
Burn in the breast he kindled still. 
*■'■ Good friend! true Jiero ! had and farewell. '''' 

This brilliant and thrilling eulogy has been more 
universally read and admired than any other effort of 
Baker's oratorical genius. His more enthusiastic friends 
have not hesitated to pronounce it a master-piece of its 
kind, rivalling in its exquisitly moulded sentences and 
classical finish, the productions of the most celebrated 
orators of antiquity. More discerning critics, how- 
ever, deem this rather extravagant laudation, and assarl 
the speech on account of its strong partisan spirit. 
And yet, in almost all the essentials of a great oration 
— in its method and arrangement, in force of thought, 
in elevation of style, in appositeness of historical illus- 
tration, and above all, in the depth and energy of feeling 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 61 

displayed — it would be difficult to find its superior 
among the records of modern oratory. Baker seemed 
to have loved Broderick as a brother — indeed, there 
was much in common between them — and hence 
mourned his untimely fall, with an eloquence and a 
pathos, which none but himself could command. We 
cannot too highly commend his indignant protest — 
the expression of a matured opinion — against duelling, 
or the so-called "code of honor," which has been justly 
termed the " inhuman relic of a barbarous age." 

HE GOES TO OREGON — IS ELECTED TO THE UNITED STATES 
SENATE. 

Failing to realize his hopes of high political advance" 
ment in California, Colonel Baker, shortly after the 
unhappy death of Broderick, changed his residence to 
the younger and more remote commonwealth of Oregon. 
He immediately entered with might and main u^^on the 
political canvass then in progress in that State. There 
were three tickets in the field — the Administration, the 
Douglas, and the Eepublican. After a hard struggle, 
the oj^position to the Administration carried the Legis- 
lature; but a coalition had to be formed among them 
in order to elect a United States Senator. And now 
came the great crisis of Baker's political life. David 
Logan, Esq., a son of Judge Logan of Illinois, was 
ge'nerally believed to be the first choice of the Eepubli- 
can members. He was a fijentleman of distino-uished 
ability as a lawyer ; had lived in the Territory several 
years before it became a State; was thoroughly 



62 Tip LIFE OF 

acquainted with the Avants of its people, and had endeared 
himself to them by his vigorous, though unsuccessful 
races for Congress. The Administration Democrats, 
who constituted a formidable minority in the Legisla- 
tive body, also made a sturdy fight, and when the question 
came to a vote, some of them " took to the bush/' ' 

But the commanding reputation of Colonel Baker, 
combined with his experience and dexterity as a politi- 
cal manager, and the singular fascination of his address, 
finally overcame all opposition, and he bore off the 
glittering Senatorial prize. 

He had now reached the eminence for which he had 
struggled through many long years, against the adverse 
w^inds and waves of fortune. He had now attained the 
highest civic honor to which his nativity would permit 
him to aspire — and still he was ^ot content. 

Eeturning to San Francisco, on his way to the East, 
Col. Baker was the recipient of a public ovation, on 
which occasion he made a speech of wondrous eloquence. 
It was known that he had been elected to the Senate 
by a coalition, and it w^as surmised by some of his politi- 
cal friends that he might, in consequence, prove recreant 
to, or at least lukewarm in the advocacy of the great 
principles of freedom, free labor, &c. To disabuse the 
public mind of any such impression, he now", in terms 
of fiery and impassioned rhetoric, renewed his fealty to 
those principles which he claimed had given direction 
to his whole political life. The subjoined brief passage 
exemplifies l\is position : 



1 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 63 

"As for me, I dare not, will not, be false to freedom. 
Where the feet of my youth were planted, there by 
freedom my feet shall ever stand. I will walk beneath 
her banner. I will glory in her strength. I have seen 
her in history struck down on a hundred fields of battle. 
I have seen her friends fly from her, her foes gather 
around her. I have seen her bound to a stake. I have 
seen them give her ashes to the winds. But when they 
turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them face 
to face, resplendent in complete steel, brandishing in her 
strong right hand a flaming swoi-d, red with insufi'erable 
light. I take courage. The people gather around her. 
The genius of America will yet lead her sons to freedom." 

In December, 1860, while en-route to Washington, 
Colonel Baker paid a hasty visit to Springfield, Illinois, 
his old home, where he was honored with a public recep- 
tion. On behalf of the citizens, the Hon. J. C. Conkling, 
in a neat and tasteful speech, formally welcomed him 
to the scene of his early labors and triumphs. The 
Senator elect responded in characteristic style. He 
expressed the liveliest gratitude at the heartiness and 
enthusiasm with which he had been received by his old 
friends, without distinction of party ; referred in touch- 
ing language to his previous history ; alluded to the 
wonderful growth and prosperity of Illinois, and of the 
great West ; and spoke with solicitude of our national 
difliculties, and the then impending civil war. 

He was now verging close on fifty ; and about his 
bodily presence there was that air of blended grace and 



64 4P^ ^^^^ ^^ 

dignity, which betokened something more than an ordi- 
nary man. Of medium height, his figure was still erect, 
and roundly and compact^ built. His head (which 
might have formed a model for a sculptor) was partially 
bald, and his hair and small side whiskers almost white. 
His complexion was florid ; his nose, large and long, was 
of the Eoman type ; his eyes of a grayish tint, and 
capable of expressing every varying emotion of the soul. 
His manners were easy and urbane, whilst his voice was 
penetrating and finely modulated, as in the days of yore. 

On taking his seat in the Senate, Mr. Baker entered 
industriously upon the discharge of the responsible 
duties of his station, and ranked from the outset among 
the foremost orators and debaters in that dignified 
assembly. " For the first time in his life," says the 
sketch from which we have already quoted, "he was 
placed in a position which was entirely appropriate to 
him. The decorum and courtesy that usually marks 
the intercourse of Senators, was most grateful to his 
habits of thought and feeling. The higher range of 
discussion, and the more cultivated tone of sentiment 
and discourse prevalent there, gave him an opportunity 
that all his life had lacked, of doing his best among his 
equals. Among these refined members, of the most 
august of representative assemblies, there was none 
more courteous, more polished, than this Western law- 
yer, this rouser of the dwellers in the backwoods." 

His remarkably fluent, graceful and natural style of 
oratory, showed that he had closely followed, if he had 



EDWARD D. BAKER. G5 

not attentively studied, Hamlet's advice to the players. 
Listen, for a moment, to the great teacher, whose words 
of wisdom are alike applicable to orators and actors : 

" Speak the piece, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you, 
trippingly on the tongue ; but if you mouth it as many 
of our players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my 
lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hands, 
thus ; but use all gently ; for in the ver^^ torrent, tempest, 
and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must 
acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smooth- 
ness. O ! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious 
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very 
rags, to split the ears of groundlings ; w^ho, for the most 
part, are incapable of nothing but inexplicable dumb 
shows and noise. I would have such a fellow Avhipped 
for overdoing Termagant ; it out Herods Herod. Pray 
you avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your 
own discretion be your tutor ; suit the action to the 
word, the word to the action; with this special observa- 
tion, that you overstep not the modesty of nature ; for 
anything so overdone is from the purpose of pla^^^ing, 
whose end both at the first, and now, was, and is, to 
hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue 
her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age 
and body of the time his form and pressure." 

HIS GREAT SPEECH IN THE SENATE. 

On the 2d and 3d days of January, 1861, Senator 
Baker addressed the Senate at great length upon a 
joint resolution which had been offered by Senator, 



66 ^E LIFE OF 

(afterwards President) Johnson, of Tenno ssec, proposing 
certain amendments to the Federal Constitution. The 
importance of the subject, and the fame of the orator, 
attracted a dense croVd to the Capitol The galleries 
and corridors of the Senate Chamber were thronged 
with eager listeners during the whole time occupied in 
the delivery of his speech. The Senator spoke in reply 
to an elaborate effort of the Hon. J. P. Bcnjamhi, of 
Louisiana, and he adopted much the same line of argu- 
ment as that pursued by Webster, in his famous reply 
to Ilayne, in 1832. For want of adequate space, we can 
only reproduce some of the more important portions of 
this exhaustive speech, including his magnificent exor- 
dium and 2)eroration : 

" Mr, President : The adventurous traveller, who wanders on the 
slopes of the racific and*on the very verge of civilization, stands awe- 
struck and astonished in that great chasm formed by the torrent of the 
Columbia, as, rushing between Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helena, it breaks 
through the ridges of the Cascade Mountains to find the sea. Nor is 
this wonder lessened when he hears his slightest tones repeated and 
re-echoed with a larger utterance in the reverberations which lose 
themselves at last amid the surrounding and distant hills. So I, stand- 
ing on this spot, and speaking for the first time in this Chamber, 
reflect with astonishment that my feeblest word is re-echoed, even 
while I speak, to the confines of the Republic. I trust, sir, that in so 
speaking in the midst of such an auditory, and in the presence of great 
events, I may remember all the responsil)ility these impose upon me, 
to perform my duty to the Constitution of the United States, and to 
be in nowise forgetful of my obligations to the whole country, of which 
I am a devoted and affectionate son. 

" It is my purpose to reply as best I may, to the speech of the honor- 
able and distinguished Senator from the State of Louisiana. I do so, 
because in my judgment at least, it is the ablest speech I have heard, 



EDWARD D, BAKER. G7 

perhaps the ablest speech I will hear upon that side of the question •, 
and in that view of the subject, because it is respectful in tone, and 
elevated in sentiment and manner ; and because, while it will be my 
fortune to differ from him on many, nay, on most of the points to which 
he has addressed himself, yet it is not, I trust, inappropriate for me to 
say, that much of what he has said, and the manner in which he has 
said it, has tended to increase the personal respect, nay, the admiration, 
which I have learned to feel for him. But, sir, while I say this, I am 
rcn iiided of the saying of a great man, (Dr. Johnson) who, when he 
was asked his critical opinion of a book just then published, and which 
was making a great sensation in London, said, ' Sir, the fellow 
who Avrote that work, has done very well what nobody ought ever to do 
at all.' 

" The entire object of this speech is, as I understand it, to offer a 
philosophical and constitutional disquisition to prove that the govern- 
ment of these United States, is, in point of fact, no government at all ; 
that it has no principle of vitality ; that it is to be overthrown by a 
touch ; dwindled into insignificance, dissolved by a breath ; not by 
maladministration merely, but in consequence of organic defects inter- 
woven with its very existence. But sir, this purpose, strange and 
mournful in anybody, — still more so in him — this purpose has a terrible 
significance now and here. In the judgment of the honorable Senator, 
the Union is this day dissolved ; it is broken and disintegrated ; civil 
war is at once a consequence necessary and inevitable. Standing in 
the Senate Chamber, he speaks like a prophet of woe. The burden of 
his prediction is the echo of what the distinguished Senator, now in 
that chair, (Mr. Iverson)lias said before : "too late, too late." The 
gleaming and lurid lights of war flash around his brow, even while he 
speaks ; and, sir, if it were not for the exquisite amenity of his tone 
and manner, we could easily pursuade ourselves that we saw the flash- 
ing of the armor of the soldier, beneath the robe of the senator. 

" My purpose is far distant, sir ; I think it is far higher. I desire 
to contribute ray poor argument to maintain the dignity, the honor of 
the Government under which I live, and under whose august shadow 
I hope to die. I propose, in opposition to all that has been said, to 
show that the government of the United States is in very deed and 



()8 ipi: LIFE OF 

fact, a real, and substantial power ; ordained by tho people, not 
dependent on the States ; sovereign in its sphere — a union, and not a 
compact between sovereign States ; that, according to its true theory, 
it has the inherent power of self-preservation ; that its constitution is 
a perpetuity, beneficent, unfailing, grand ; and that its powers are 
equally capable of exercise against domestic treason, and against 
a foreign foe. Such, sir, is the nuiin purpose of ray speech ; and what 
I may say in addition to this, will be drawn from me in reply to the 
speech to which I propose now to address myself. 

*' Sir, the argument of the honorable Senator from Louisiana, is 
addressed first, to establish the proposition that the State of South 
Carolina has, as she says, seceded from the Union rightfully ; and 
sir, just here he says one thing which meets my hearty approval and 
acquiescence. He says he does not deem it — such is the substance of 
his remark — unwise or improper to argue the right of the case, even 
now, and here. In this I agree with him most heartily. Right and 
duty are always majestic ideas. They march, an invisible guard, in the 
van of all true progress ; they animate the loftiest spirit in the public 
assemblies ; they nerve the arm of the warrior ; they kindle the spul 
of the statesman, and the imagination of the poet; they sweeten every 
reward, they console every defeat. Sir, they are of themselves an 
indissoluble chain which binds feeble, erring humanity to the eternal 
throne of God. 

" I observe first, sir, that the argument of the gentleman, from 
beginning to end, is based upon the assumption that the Constitution 
of the United States is a compact between sovereign States. I thinly 
I in no sense misapprehend it ; I am sure such cannot be my desire. 
I understood him throughout the whole tone of his speech to maintain 
that proposition — I repeat it, that the Constitution of the United 
States is a compact between sovereigu States. Arguing from thence 
he arrives at the conclusion, that being so, a compact when broken by 
either of the States, or by the General Government, the creature of 
the Constitution, South Carolina may treat the compact as so broken, 
the contract as rescinded ; may withdraw peacefully from the Union, 
and resume her original condition. 



EDWARD D- BAKER. 60 

*' I remark next, that this proposition is in nowise new; and perhaps 
for that, as it is a constitutional proposition, it is all the better. Again, 
the argument by which the honorable Senator seeks to maintain it 
is in nowise new in any of its parts. I have examined with some care 
the arguments hitherto made by great men, the echoes of whose 
eloquence still linger under this dome^ and I find that the proposition, 
the argument, the authority, the illustration, are but a repetition of 
the famous discussion led off by Mr. Calhoun, and growing out of the 
attempt of South Carolina to do before, what she says she has done 
now. If the proposition is not new, and if the arguments are not 
strange, it will not be wonderful if the replies partake of the like 
character. I deny, as Mr. Madison denied, I deny, as Mr. Webster de- 
nied, I deny, as General Jackson denied, that this Union is a compact 
between the sovereign States at all ; and so denying, I meet just [here 
the authorities which the honorable Senator has chosen to quote. They 
are substantially as follows : first, not the Constitution itself, (and 
that is remarkable,) second, not the arguments made by the great 
expounders of the Constitution directly upon this floor ; but mainly 
fugitive expressions, sometimes hasty, not always considered, on 
propositions not germane to the controversy now engaging us to-day ; 
and when made, if misapprehended, porrected again and again in after 
years. To illustrate : The gentleman from Louisiana has quoted at 
considerable length from the debates in the Convention which formed 
the Federal Constitution; he has quoted the opinions of Mr. Madison, 
and to those who liave not looked into the question, it might appear 
as if those expressions were really in support of the proposition, that 
this is a compact between sovereign States. Nov/ sir, to show that 
that is in no sense so, I Avill read as a reply to the entire quotations of 
Mr. Madison, what Mr. Madison has said upon that subject, upon the 
fullest consideration. I proceed to read the letter of Mr. Madison to 
Mr. Webster, dated March 15th, 1833." 

Having read the letter referred to, Mr. Baker continued : " I 
submit to the candor of tha Senator from Louisiana, that this is distinct, 
positive, unequivocal authority to show that so far as the opinions of 
Mr. Madison were concerned, he did not believe that the Constitution 



70 Hie life op 

of the United States was a compact between sovereign States; but 
that he did believe it was a form of Government ordained by the 
people of the United States. 

" Again, Mr. Webster is quoted. I expected when I heard Mr. 
Webster named, that the honorable Senator would allude to the great 
discussion which his genius has rendered innnortal. He does not do 
that, but refers specifically to a passage of Mr. Webster in an argu- 
ment, I believe, upon a question arising as to the boundary between 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island." 

The speaker quoted in succession the opinions of Mr. Webster, Mr. 
Adams, and General Jackson, in support of his proposition, connnent- 
ing on the same, and then proceeded with his argument on this branch 
of the sujjject as follows : " Another mistake Avhich I tliink is obvious 
throughout the speech of the Senator from Louisiana, is the assumption, 
not only that the Constitution is a compact, but that the States as 
parties to it are sovereign. Sir, they are not sovereign ; and this 
Federal Government is not sovereign. Paraphrasing the Mahometan 
expression, "There is but one God," I may and do say, not without 
reverence, there is but one sovereign, and that sovereign is the jjcople. 
The State Government is its creation ; the Federal Government is its 
creation ; each supreme in its sphere ; each sovereign for its purpose ; 
but each limited in its authority, and each dependent on delegated 
power. Why sir, can that State — either Oregon or South Carolina — 
be sovereign which relinquishes the insignia of sovereignty, the exer- 
cise of its highest powers, the expression of its noblest dignities ? Xot 
£o. We can neither coin money, nor buy impost duties, nor make 
war, nor peace, nor raise standing armies, nor build fleets, nor issue 
bills of credit. In short, sir, we cannot do — because the people, as 
sovereigns, have placed the power in other hands — many, nay, most of 
those things which exhibit and proclaim the sovereignty of a State to 
the whole world. Mr. Webster has well observed that there can be in 
this country no sovereignty in the European sense of sovereignty. It 
is, I believe, a feudal idea. It has no place here. I repeat, we are 
not sovereign here. They are not sovereign in South Carolina, and 



EDWARD D, BAKER. 71 

cannot be in tlie nature of the case ; and therefore all assumptions and 
all presumptions arising out of tlie proposition of sovereignty on the 
part or a State is a fallacy from beginning to end. 

" Again sir, Mr. Calhoun, in the course of his celebrated argument> . 
in well chosen words, insisted that the States in their sovereign 
capacity, acceded to a compact. Mr. Webster replied with his usual 
force. The word " accede" was chosen as the converse of " secede ;" 
the argument being intended to be that, if the State accedes to a 
compact, she may secede from that compact. But said Mr. Webster 
— and no man has answered the argument, and no man ever will — it 
is not'the accession to a compact at all ; it is not the formation of a 
league at all ; it is the action of the people of the United States, 
carrying into effect their purpose from the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence itself, manifested in the ordination and establishment of a Govern- 
ment, and expressed in their own emphatic words in the pi^eamble of 
the Constitution of the United States. 

" In arguing upon the meaning and import of the Constitution, I had 
hoped that a lawyer so distinguished as the gentleman from Louisiana, 
would have referred to the terms of that document, to have endeavored 
at least, to find its real meaning froin its force and mode of expression. 
In the absence of such quotation, I beg leave to remind him that the 
Constitution itself declares by Avhom it was made, and for what it was 
made. Mr. Adams, reading it, declares that the Constitution of the 
United States was the Avork of one people — the people of the United 
States — and that these United States still continue one people ; and 
to establish that, among other things, he refers to the fact — the great, 
the patent, the glorious fact — that the Constitution declares itself to 
have been made by the people, and not by sovereign States — by tiie 
people of the United States; not a compact, not a league, but it 
declares that the people of the United States do ordain and establish 
a Government. Now I ask the Senator what becomes of the reitera- 
tion that the Constitution is a compact between sovereign States. 

" Pursuing what I think is a defective mode of reasoning from 
beginning to end, the distinguished Senator from Louisiana quotes 



xu 



E LIFE OF 



Vattel, and for what ? To prove what, a< I umlorstami, nobody denies, 
that a sovereign Stale being sovereign, may make a compaet, and 
afterwards withdraw from it. Our answer to that is that South 
Canilina is not a sovereign State ; that South Carv>lina has not made a 
compvaet, and that therefore she cannot withdraw from it ; and I 
submit that all the disquisitions upon the natnre of European 
sovereignty, or any of tliose forms of government to which the distin- 
guished Senator has had his observation attracted, are no argument 
whatever in a controversy as to the force and meaning of our Consti- 
tution, bearing upon the States, sovereign in some sense, not sovereign 
in others, but bearing most upon individuals in their individual 
relations. But the object of the speech was two-fold. It was to prove 
first that the Union was a compact between States, and that, therefore, 
there was a rightful remedy for injury, intoler-able or otherwise, by 
secession. Now, sir, I confess, in one thing I do not understand this 
speech, although it is so cleiU'ly uttered and forcibly expressed. D«.h>s 
the Senator moan to argue that thei"e is such a thing as a Consti- 
tutional right of secession. Is it a right under the Constitution, or 
is it a right above it and beyond it ?'' 

In a running debate with Senator Benjamin, Mr. 
Baker next discussed the Constitutional right of seces- 
sion, showing its fallacy, and then, passing to the 
question of the revolutionary right of a people to change 
their form of government, he said : 

"I admit that there is a revolutionary right. AVhence does it 
spring ? How is it limited ? To these questions, for a moment I 
address myself. Whence does it spring ? AVhy, sir, as a right in 
connnunities, it is of the same nature as the right of self-preservation 
in the individaal. A community protects itself by revolution against 
intolerable oppression, agixinst any form of government, iis an individaal 
protects himself against intolerable oppivssiou by brute force. No 
compnct, no treaty, no constitution, no form of government, no oath 
or obligation can deprive a nuui or a comumuiiy of that sacivd» 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 40 

ultimate right. Xow, sir, I think I stato that proposition asi fully as I 
could be desired to state it by the gentlemen on the other side. The 
question that arises between us at once, is, ho\Y this right of revolution 
uuist be exercised ? In a case, and in a case only, where all other 
remedies fail ; where the oppression is grinding, intolerable, and per- 
manent ; where revolution is in its nature a tit redress ; and where 
they who adopt it as a remedy, cjui do it in the full light of all the 
examples of the past; of all the responsibilities of the present ; of all 
the unimpjvssioned judgment of the future, and the ultimate determi- 
nation of the Supreme Arbitrator and Judge of all. Sir, a right so 
exercised, is a sacred right. I maintain it ; and I would exercise it. 
The question recurs: has South Ciu-olina that right? I think the 
honorable Senator will not deny that one of the greatest responsibili- 
ties which could devolve upon a community or State, is to break up 
an established peaceful form of government. If that he true as an 
abstract proposition, bow much more does the truth strike us, when 
we apply it to tlie condition in which we found ourselves two months 
ago ? South Ciirolina proposes now, according to the latter doctrine, 
to secede as a revolutionary right, tis a resistance against intolerable 
oppression ; as an appeal to arms for the maintenance of rights, for 
the redress of wrongs, where the one cannot be maintained, and the 
other redressed otherwise. Xow, sir, I denwud of her, and of those who 
defend her, that she should stand out in the broad light of history, 
and declare, if not by the Senators that she ought, to have on this 
tiooi', by those who league with her, in what that oppression consists ; 
where that injury is inflicted ; by whom the blow is struck ; what 
weapon is used in the attack. So much, at least, we have the right to 
inquire. After that inquiry, permit me to add another thing : a State 
claiming to be sovereign, and a people, part of a great Government, 
ought to act with deliberation and dignity ; she ought to be able to 
apncivl to all history for kindred cases of intolerable oppression, and 
kindred occasions of magnanimous revolution. 

" Sir, we are not unacquainted in this Chamber with the history of 
revolutions, "SVe very well know that our forefathers rebelled against 
the house of Stuart. And why ? The causes aie as well known to 

C 



74 THE LIFE OF 



THE L 



the world, as the great struggle by which they maintained the right, 
and the great renown wliich has ever followed the deed. When Oliver 
Cromwell brought a traitorous, false king, and gave him, a dim discrowned 
monarch, to the block, he did it by a solemn judgment, in the face of 
man, and in the face of Heaven, avouching the deed on the great 
doctrine of revolutionary right ; and although a fickle people betrayed 
his memory — although the traditions of monarchy were yet too strong 
for the better thought of the English people — yet still, now, here, 
to-day, wherever the English language is read, wherever that historic 
glowing story is repeated, the hearts of brave and generous men throb 
when the deed is avouched, and justify the act. Again, there was a 
second revolution, the revolution of 1688, and why? Because a 
cowardly, fanatic, bigoted monarch, sought by the exercise of a power, 
to be used through the bayonets of standing armies, to repress the 
liberties of a free people ; because he attempted to force upon them a 
religion alien to their thought and to their hope ; because he attempted 
to trample under foot all that was sacred in the constitution of English 
government. 

"And, sir, in the history of revolutions, there are examples more 
illustrious still ; perhaps the greatest of them all, that revolution 
which ended in the establishment of the Dutch Republic. My honor- 
able friend, I know, has read the glowing pages of Motley, perhaps the 
most accurate, if not the most brilliant, of American historians. I am 
sure that his heart has throbbed with generous enthusiasm, as he read 
the thrilling pages of that story, where a great people, led by the 
heroic house of Orange, pursued through danger, through sacrifice, 
through blood, through destruction of property, of houses, of families, 
and of all but the great indestructible spirit of liberty, the tenor of 
their way to liberty, and greatness and glory at last. Sir, I need not 
tell him the oppression against wliich they rebelled ; that the intoler- 
able tyranny under which they groaned, was of itself sufficient not only 
to enlist on their side, and in their behalf, all the sympathies of civi- 
lized Europe, but the sympathies of the whole civilized world, as they 
have read the story since. 

"Yet, once more, in the full light of these revolutions, our fore- 
fathers rebelled against a tyrant, declaring the causes of the revolution, 



EDWARD D. BAKER, 75 

proclaiming tbcm to the world, in a document that is familiar to us all ,• 
We recognize the right. Why ? Because the oppression was intoler- 
able, because the tyranny could not be borne ; because the essential 
rights belonging to every human being were violated, and that continu- 
ally, and in Avords more eloquent than I could use, or than I now have 
time to quote, Mr. Jefferson proclaimed them to the world, and gave 
the reasons which impelled us to the separation. Sir, I ask the 
honorable Senator to bring his record of reasons for revolution, blood- 
shed and war, here to-day, and compare them with that document." 

He next reviewed in detail, the man^^ grievancies of 
the South, Speaking of the right of free discussion, 
and of a free j)ress, he eloquently said : 

" Mr. President, do gentlemen propose to us seriously, that we shall 
stop the right of free discusion, that we shall limit the free press, 
that we shall restrain the expression of free opinion, everywhere, on all 
subjects, and at all times ? Why, sir, in our land, if there be any base 
enough to blaspheme the Maker that created him, the Savior that died 
for him, we have no power to stop him. If there be the most bitter, 
unjust, and vehement denunciation of all principles of morality and 
goodness, on which human society is based, and on which it may 
securely stand, we have, for great and overruling reasons connected 
with liberty itself, no power to restrain it. Private character, public 
service, individual relations — neither of these, nor age, nor sex, can be, 
in the nature of our Government, exempt from that liability to attack. 
And, sir, shall gentleman complain that slavery shall not be made, and 
is not made an exception to that general rule ? You did that when 
you made what you call a compact with us. You were then emerging 
out of the war of Independence. Your fathers had fought for that 
right, and more than that, they had declared that the violation of that 
right was one of the great causes which impelled them to the separation, 

I submit these thoughts to gentlemen on the other side, in the 
candid hope that they will see at once, that the attempt to require us 
to do for them what we cannot do for ourselves, is unjust in the 
highest degree. Sir, the liberty of the press is the highest safeguard 



76 T^ LIFE OF 

to all free government. Ours could not exist without it. It is with 
us, nay, with all men, like a great, exulting and abounding river. It 
is fed by the dews of heaven, which distil their sweetest drops to 
form it. It gushes from the rill, as it breaks from the deep caverns of 
the earth. It is fed by a thousand affluents that dash from the moun- 
tain top, to separate again into a thousand bounteous and irrigating 
rills around. On its broad bosom it bears a thousand barks. ' There 
Genius spreads its purpling sail ; there Poetry dips its silver oar ; 
there Art, Invention, Discovery, Science, Morality, Religion, may 
safely and securely float. It wanders through every land. It is a 
genial, cordial source of thought and inspiration, wherever it touches, 
whatever it surrounds. Sir, upon its borders grow every flower of 
•grace, and every fruit of truth. I am not here to deny that that river 
sometimes oversteps its bounds. I am not here to deny that that 
stream sometimes becomes a dangerous torrent, and destroys towns 
and cities on its banks ; but I am here to say, that without it, civili- 
zation, humanity, government, all that makes society itself, would 
disappear, and the world would return to its ancient barbarism. Sir, 
if that were to be possible, the fine conception of the great poet would 
be realized. If that were to be possible, though for a moment, c'tvill- 
zation itself would roll the wheels of its car backward for iivo thousand 
years. Sir, if that were so, it would be true that 

*'As one by one in dread Medea's train. 
Star after star fades off the etherial plain ; 
Thus at her felt approach and secret might, 
Art after art goes out and all is night. 
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, 
Shiks to her second cause and is no more ; 
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires. 
And, unawares, morality expires." 

*' Sir, we will not risk these consequences, even for slavery ; we will 
^ot risk these consequences even for Union ; we will not risk these 
consequences to avoid that civil war with which you threaten us ; that 
war which you announce as deadly, and which you declare to be 
inevitable." 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 77 

Argnmg the question of concession and compromise, 
he continued : 

*' Sir, while it is quite well that I should announce my opinion, as 
to what we might do, I shall enter into no details. I shall endeavor 
to bind nobody else. I express ray conviction at the moment, subject 
of course to all the changes that events and circumstances hereafter to 
transpire, may justify. I will never yield to the idea tiiat the great 
Government of this country shall protect slavery in any Territory now 
ours, or hereafter to be acquired. It is in my opinion a great princi- 
ple of free government, not to be surrendered. It is the object of the 
greSt battle which we have fought, and which we have won. It is, in 
my poor opinion, the point upon which there is concord and agreement 
between the great masses of the North, who may agree in no other politi- 
cal opinion whatever. In my opinion, nine tenths of the entire 
population of the North and West, are devoted in the depth of their 
hearts to the great constitutional idea, that freedom is the rule, and 
that slavery is the exception ; that it ought not to be extended by 
virtue of the powers of the Government of the United States, and 
conte weal, come woe, it never shall be. 

" But, sir, I add one other thing ; when you talk to me about com- 
jpromise or concession, I am not sure I always understand you. Do you 
mean that I am to give up my conviction of right ? Armies cannot 
compel that in the breast of a free people. Do you mean that I am to 
-concede the benefits of the political struggle through which we have 
passed, considered politically only ? Do you mean that we are to deny 
the great principle upon which our political action has been based ? 
You know we cannot. But if you mean by compromise and concession, 
to ask us to see whether or not we have been hasty, angry, passionate, 
excited, and in many respects violated your feelingSj your character, 
your right of property, we will look ; and as I said yestarday, if we 
have, we xolll undo it. Allow me to saw again, if there be any lawyer, 
or any court, that will advise us that our laws are unconstitutional, we 
will repeal them. Such is my opinion. 

" Now, as to territory, I will not yield one inch to secession ; but 



78 T|g^LIFE OF 

there are tilings that I will jneld. It is somewhere told, that when 
Harold of England received a messenger from a brother, with whom 
he was at variance, to inquire on what terms reconciliation and peace 
could be effected between brothers, he replied in a gallant and gene- 
rous spirit, in a few words : ' The terms I offer, are, the aflTection of a 
brother, and the earldom of Northumberland.' * * Sir, in that 
spirit I speak. * * "^ * «' I gay that I will yield no inch, no 
word to the threat of secession, unconstitutional, revolutionary, unwise, 
at variance with the heart and the hope of all mankind but themselves. 
To that I yield nothing ; but if the States loyal to the Constitution, if 
people magnanimous and just, desiring a return of paternal feeling, 
shall come to us and ask for peace, permanent, enduring peace and 
affection, and say, ' what will you grant ?' I say to them, ask all that a 
gentleman ought to propose, and I will yield all that a gentleman ought 
to offer. Nay, more ; if you are galled because we claim the right to 
prohibit slavery in territory now free, or in any Territory which 
acknowledges our jurisdiction, we will evade — I speak for myself — I 
will aid in evading that question. I will agree to make it all States, 
and let the people decide at once. I will agree to place them in that 
condition, where the prohibition will never be necessary to justify our- 
selves to our consciences, or to our constituents. I will agree to 
anything which is not to force upon me the necessity of protecting 
slavery in the name of freedom. To that I never can, and never will 
yield. 

"Amid all the threats of dissolution, and all the croakings and pre. 
dictions of evil, when the gentleman gets up inflamed by the momentary 
inspiration, and declares that there will be civil war, in the next, as he con- 
cludes in an expression full of pathos, he says : * Let us depart in peace,' 
' crying peace, when there is no peace.' Amid all this, I have great 
faith yet in the loyalty of the people of the South to the Union. I see 
around me to-day, that the clouds are breaking away. I see men of 
every shade of opinion on other subjects, agreeing in this one thing : 
that in secession there is danger and death. I see from ' Old Chippe- 
wa,' from Gen, Wool, from men of their high character, of their great 
age, of their proud career, of their enlarged patriotism, down to the 



EDWARD D. BAKER. rJ 

lower ranks of men who love the country and venerate the Constitution — 
I see, and I hear everywhere, expressions that even yet fill the patriot 
heart with hope, and I am not without hope that, when there is delay, 
when time is allowed to the feverish sentiment to subside, and for 
returning reason to resume its place, trusted to the people of this 
wliole Union, the Constitution will remain safe, unshaken forever ; yes, 
sir, until 

" Wrapt in flames the realms of ether glow. 

And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below." 

On the much mooted question of " coercion/' he thus 
expressed his views, in a general way: 

" Sir, as I approach a close, I am reminded that the honorable 
Senator from Louisiana, has said in a tone which I by no means admire: 
' Now gentlemen of the North, a State has seceded ; you must either 
acknowledge her independence, or you must make war.' To that we 
reply, we will take no counsel of our opponents. We will not acknoAvl- 
edge her independence. They say we cannot make war against the 
State ; and the gentleman undertakes to ridicule the distinction Avhich 
we make between a State and individuals. Sir, it was a distinction 
that Mr. Madison well understood ; it was a distinction that General 
Jackson was very well determined to recognize ; it was the distinction 
which was made in the whole argument when the Constitution was 
formed, and I may say here, that all the arguments adduced by the 
gentleman from Elliot's Debates, on the formation of the Constitution, 
were arguments addressed against the propriety and wisdom of giving, 
under the old patched up Confederation, power to the Government to 
compel States, because they could not. They did not dare to do it, 
for they did not choose to confound the innocent with the guilty, and 
make war on some portion of unoffending people, because others were 
guilty ; and therefore, among other reasons, the new Government was 
formed, a Union — ' a more perfect Union' — by one people. That is the 
answer to the whole argument. 

" Now, sir, let us examine for a moment, this idea that we cannot 



80 THE LIFE OF 

make war. First, we do not propose to do it. Does any gentleman* 
on this side of the Chamber propose to declare war against Soutii 
Carolina. Did you ever hear us suggest such a thing ? You talk ta 
us about coercion ; many of you talk to us as if you desired us to 
attempt it. It would not be very strange if a Government, and hitherto 
a great Government, were to coerce obedience to her law, upon the 
part of them who Avere subject to her jurisdiction. No great cause of 
complaint in that, certainly. ' But,' says the gentleman, ' these per- 
sons offending against your law, are a sovereign State ; you cannot 
make war upon her,' and following out with the acuteness of a lawyer, 
what he supposes to be the modus operandi^ he asks, * What will you do 
if you will not acknowledge her independence, and you do not make- 
war ; how will you collect the revenue ?' And he goes on to show very 
conclusivsly, to his own mind, that we cannot. He shows us how a. 
skillful lawyer, step by step, will interpose exception, motion, demurrer, 
rejoinder and sur-rejoinder, from the beginning to the end of the legal 
chapter ; and says, with an air of triumph, which I thought did not 
become a gentleman that is still a Senator from a sovereign State,, 
upon this floor, he says, ' it is nonsense ; you cannot do it ; you will 
not acknowledge her ; you will not declare war; you cannot collect 
your revenue.' Sir, if that is the case to-day, it has been so foir 
seventy years ; we have been at the mei'cy of anybody and evei'ybody 
who might choose to flout us. Is that true ? Are we a Government ? 
Have we the power to execute the laws? The gentleman threatens us 
with the consequences, and he says if we attempt it, there will be all 
sorts of legal delays interposed, and when that is done, there will be a 
mob ; a great Government will be kicked out of existence by the 
tumultuous and vulgar feet of a mob, and he seems to rejoice at it.. 
•JE- * * * Why, Mr. President, against the legal objections to 
collecting the revenue in a case where South Carolina revolts, and 
individuals refuse to pay duties, against the lawyership of my fmend 
from Louisiana, I will put another lawyer, General Jackson, a man of 
whom Mr. Webster said, that when he put his foot out, he never took 
it back ; and if the gentleman wauts a solution of the difficulties as to 
the manner in \yhich the revenue is lo be collected near the sovereign 
State of Soutl) Carolina, when she is in a condition of revolt oi? 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 81 

revolution, I will show him what General Jackson thought, and ordered 
to be done, when South Carolhm revolted once before. I will read 
the instructions of General Jackson as to the mode of collecting the 
revenue, when South Carolina was preparing, by ordinance of nullifi- 
cation, to refuse to pay it. 

***^*** ***** 
"Why, sir, there is nothing practical in this attempted idea that we 
cannot punish an individual, or that we cannot compel him to obey the 
law, because a sovereign State will succor him." 

The orator concluded this himinoiis and comprehen- 
sive speech in the following lofty and impressive strain, 
adopting as his own, Webster's words of solemn imj^ort 
and burning eloquence; • 

." "Whatever moderation, whatever that great healer, time, whatever 
the meditation of those allied to these people in blood, in sympathy, 
in interest, may effect, let that be done ; but at last, iet the laws be 
maintained, and the Union be preserved. At whatever cost, by what- 
ever constitutional process, through whatever of darkness or danger 
there may be, let us proceed in the broad luminous path of duty, ' till 
danger's troubl'd night be passed, and the star of peace returns.' 

*'As I take my leave of a subject, upon which I have already detained 
you too long, I think in my own mind, whether I shall add anything 
in my feeble way to the hopes, the prayers, the aspirations, that arc 
going forth daily for the perpetuity of the Union of these States. I 
ask myself, shall I add anything to that volume of invocation which is 
everywhere rising up to high Heaven, ' Spare uh from the mad/iexs of 
disunion and civil uar /' 

*' Sir, standing in this Chamber, and speaking on this subject, I 
cannot forget that I am standing in a place once occupied by one far 
mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. 
It Avas upon this subject of secession, of disunion, of discord, of civil 
war, that Mr. Webster uttered those immortal sentiments, clothed in 
immortal words, married to the noblest expressions that ever fell from 

7 



82 ^lE LIFE OP 

Imnian lips ; which alone would have made him memorable, and 
remembered forever. Sir, I cannot improve upon those expressions. 
They were uttered, nearly thirty years ago, in the face of what was 
imagined to be a great danger, then happily dissipated. They were 
littered in the fullness of his genius, from the fullness of his heart. 
They have found an echo since then in millions of homes, and in 
foreign lands. They have been a text book in schools. They have 
been an inspiration to public hope and to public liberty. As I close, I 
repeat them. If, in their presence, I were to attempt to give utterance 
to any words of my own, I should feel that I ought to say, 
*'And shall the Lyre, so long divine, 
Degenerate into hands like mine ?" 
" Sir, I adopt the closing passages of that immortal speech ; they 
are my sentiments ; they are the sentiments of every man on this side 
of the Chamber. I would fliin believe they are the sentiments of 
every man on this floor. I would fain believe they were an inspiration, 
and will become a power througliout the length and breadth of tliis 
Confederacy — that again the aspirations, and hopes, and prayers for 
the Union, may rise like a perpetual hymn of praise. But, sir, how- 
ever this may be, these thoughts are mine, these prayers are mine, 
and as reverently and fondly I utter them, I leave the discussion : 

*' ' When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time, the sun 
in hetiven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored 
fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, 
belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in 
fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble, lingering glance rather 
behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored 
throughout tlie earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies 
streaming in their original lustre ; not a stripe erased nor polluted, not 
a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable inter- 
rogatory as ' What is all this worth V Jsov those other words of 
delusion and folly, 'Liberty first, and Union afterwards;' but every- 
where, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its 
ample folds as they float over the sea, and over the land, and in every 
wind under the whole heavens, that other sentunent, dear to every 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 83 

true American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and 
inseparable.' " 

In this highly ornate, as well as logical speech, and, 
we may add, in all of his public utterances, Senator 
Baker reminds us of what Plutarch so inimitably says 
of Pericles : That, '' desirous to make his language a 
proper vehicle for his sublime sentiments, and to speak 
in a manner that became the dignity of his life, he 
availed himself greatly of w^hat he had learned of 
Anxagoras, adorning his eloquence with the rich colors 
of philosophy ; for, adding the loftiness of imagination, 
and all-commanding energy, with which philosophy 
supplied him, to his native powers of genius, and making 
use of w^iatever he found to his purpose in the study 
of nature to dignify the art of speaking, he far excelled 
all other orators." 

REMARKS ON THE PACIFIC RAILROAD BILL. 

On January 5th, 1861, the Senate, in Committee of 
the Whole, having under consideration the bill to secure 
contracts, and make provision for the safe, certain and 
more speedy transportation by railroad, of mails, troops 
and munitions of w^ar, between the Atlantic States and 
those of the Pacific, and for other purposes, Mr. Baker 
made a forcible speech in favor of the bill, from which 
we collate the following interesting passages : 

"I had been led to suppose, when I came here, that there was a 
party in Congress, in favor of a Pacific Railroad. I believe I am 
mistaken ; or if there be, I am sure it is lying supinely by, and giving 
control of the supposed measure into the hands of its enemies. We 



84 TIIE LIFE OF 



Tn] 



have seen every conceivable mode of objection, which the time will 
permit, made against it, with the appearance sometimes of friendshi]), 
but with all the tenacity of enmity. Gentlemen ibrget, in their objec- 
tions, whatever may be learned from experience as to legislation upon 
subjects somewhat kindred. Now, I understand the distinguished 
Senator from Mississippi, (Mr. Davis) who has just spoken, to say, 
that he will not go for any measure which will give the Government 
political control, and that he will not go for any measure which will 
tend to enrich individuals, * * * That line of objection which 
attacks a measure, because the Government may have too much to do 
Avith it, and because individuals may have too much to do with it, will 
leave it between two stools and let it fall to the ground. 

" One gentleman objects that he will not make a grant of land to 
anybody, for any thing, except subject to the condition that Congress 
shall supervise State legislation, and approve the acts of incorporation 
that individuals may get of the State governments. All that class of 
objections are, I will not say intended, but framed, to defeat the road. 
Now, after ten years struggle ; after hope so long deferred ; when the 
Representatives of the people by a very large majority, after every 
conceivable objection has been made and answered; when the con- 
dition of public affairs; when a desire to end sectional strife; when a 
desire for the Union ; when every reason so well presented by the 
disting\ushed Senator from New York, would seem to point out to us 
the necessity of doing it at once, it appears to me that we are further 
off from it to-day than ever. And the reason why, it strikes me, that 
we are further than usual , is this: that objections which have been 
answered in every State Legislature, on every incorporation bill from 
the time legislation conmienced on such subjects, seem to weigh with 
unwonted force on the minds of a large majority of this body. 

"Take the#sectional objection offered by my distinguished friend 
from Louisiana ; and I attempt to answer these objections, briefly, 
Tl\e gentleman says — looking at the sectional aspect of the subject — 
' here are fifty-three individuals, your corporators, from fourteen 
States.' Now, sir, this bill proposes two roads, and not one ; two seta 
of corporators and not one ; and, I think, the gentleman, in fairness, 
ought to have stated that fact in conjunction with what ho has said. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 85 

It is true that the corporators for one road are selected from fourteen 
States of the Union ; but it is also true, as I am informed, that the 
•^rant which is made to the persons who are to be incorporated to make 
the second road — the Texas road — inures really to persons all over the 
southern portion of the Union. And, if gentlemen had paid the 
attention to this subject they do to most others, I think they would 
have learned that, from the history of its passage through the other 
House, and would have accommodated their views to that fact. 

" But, again, sir, every one knows that the history of making rail- 
roads in this country, is an attempt upon the part of the Government, 
wliere they do give advantage to somebody, to combine individual skill, 
effort and caution, with Government authority and money. That is 
the use of a bill incorporating individuals, and has been from the 
beginning. If, according to the plan suggested by the gentleman from 
Mississippi, the Government alone were to do it, we have always been 
told that Government would spend its money in the most wasteful and 
ineffective way in the world. Therefore, the usual course has been to 
unite the skill and care of individuals in the Government expendi- 
tures. This bill endeavors to do that. It follows out the plan that 
States adopt, and, I believe, the plan that Congress has often adopted 
before. It adopts the plan upon which the great railroads of Illinois 
have been built — a plan, which, in my judgment, has proved itself more 
successful than any other upon which a Government has ever attempt- 
ed to complete a great work for the benefit of its people. * * ^- 
* * * " I am for one road. If I do not understand this measure, 
at least I have thought of it ; I know what my people desire. If I had 
my way, I would say, unhesitatingly, make a road from San Francisco 
as near to St. Louis as you can get it. It appears to me, that every 
consideration would point out that as the best way. Again : I am an 
old Whig ; I am not afraid of extending the power of this Government ; 
I wish it was a more consolidated and stronger government than it is ; 
I have not a bit of respect for this idea of State's rights, which is now 
convulsing this country to its center ; and if I had my choice, I would 
build the road with the power of the Government, with the money of 
the Government, for the benelit of the people, and I would build it at 



86 THE LIFE OF 

any cost. But I cannot have my way ; I am obliged to concede, to 
compromise. Accordingly, I meet the Senator from California, with 
whom it is my fortune to agree about hardly anything, and I adapt my- 
eelf, as far as I can, to his plan ; and he in turn, conforms himself to 
the opinions of various other distinguished gentlemen on this floor ; 
not getting that which he would desire, but getting the best he can ; 
harmonizing all interests and settling all conflicts. Sir, is not that 
statesmanlike ? Is any great measure ever adopted otherwise, either 
in Government or in administration ? Was not the Constitution so 
formed ? And to say to us, ' we will not go for the greatest measure 
of the age, or of the world, because it does not begin exactly at the 
right spot, because the money is not spent exactly by the right man, 
because it does not end exactly in the riglit place,' would be to divide 
us into endless fractions of opinion, never being able to arrive at a 
sensible result. Therefore, it is that I appeal, not to the enemies of 
the bill, but to its friends — men who have advocated it in the country, 
in discussion before the people ; men who come here to reflect the true 
opinion of their States — I ask them now, in the time of its trial, to 
give up mere questions of locality, to give up objections as to this man 
or the other, and agree with Avhat the deliberate wisdom of the popular 
branch, after three years efifort, has determined to be practical. * * 
^******^fr "I have but one other word, and I close. 
I, like my friend from California, feel that interest in the passage of 
this bill which belongs to our Western coast. We are very far oft'; 
we are loyal to the Union ; we will remain with it, whether you give 
us this road or not ; but almost everything in which a government can 
assist or protect a people, is connected with the passage of this bill. 
Its enemies know very well, and the distinguished gentleman who has 
led its defense so long, knows it still better than they, that if you 
amend this bill now, in any important particular, you defeat it for this 
session, and probably forever. My distinguished friend from Louisiana 
knows well that that is so, when he attacks it with his acuteness and 
vigor ; I think the gentleman from Mississippi knows that very well, 
when he presents an attack not so acute, but broad, comprehensive, 
general — none the less fierce. And it astonishes me, that we Republi- 
cans, for ten years the advocates of the great general idea; for ten 



EDWARD D, BAKER. 87 

rears holding out the hope which we have learned from the people 
themselves ; that we, now, when we have the power, when we have kind 
and generous friends, not named as Eepublicans, with us, whose inter- 
ests or whose patriotism lead them to act with us, enough to carry 
the bill ; that we, dividing upon minor points, should let the bill go 
by, and cling from mere pride and petty objection to that line of policy 
which must insure its entire, perhaps permanent defeat." 

Again, on January 15th, when the Senate, in Commit- 
tee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the 
Pacific Eaih-oad bill, Mr. Baker addressed the Com- 
mittee, briefly, as follows : 

*' Mr. President, what has been said in relation to this northern 
road compels me, reluctantly, to say a very few words, whicb I trust 
my friends here, and, indeed, on both sides of the Chamber, will attend 
to. I am going to vote for the bill as it is, as nearly as I can, without 
any amendments or alterations ; and I am going to do so, while, as I 
believe, I represent a constituency further north than any other gentle- 
man upon this floor. I am going to vote against any material amend- 
ment, or any at all, although I am told that the northern route, proposed, 
will benefit the immediate people whom I represent, very greatly. 
While I do so, I know that I shall be misapprehended — I will not say 
misrepresented — at home. I know the argument will bear upon me 
as heavily as it can bear upon any gentleman on this side of the 
Chamber, who may vote as I do, that I am not voting for the immediate 
interests of my constituents, by bringing the road nearer their homes 
and through their farms. I must meet that as I may. 

" I desire to say here, and to give it as much publicity as I can, 
just this : having lived for ten years on the Pacific coast, where our 
whole hopes have been directed towards some road, I see at last a 
prospect of accomplishing that result by this bill. I have observed, 
with great care, the struggle in the other House ; and I have seen that, 
by an overwhelming vote, the proposition for a northern route 
lias been defeated. I am sure — and I take the advice of all the 
original friends of the bill around me — that to incorporate any 



88 THE LIFE OF 

amendment in the bill now, will defeat it for this session, and possibly 
forever. In that condition, quite alive to the interests of my constitu- 
ents, quite sure that my conduct may be the subject of misapprehensi(»u 
or misrepresentation, quite sure that all that strong feeling of locality 
for our State, our road, may be brought to bear upon me in future ; yet, 
risking my justification upon the great idea tliat I believe I am doing 
the best I can to promote the connection between the Atlantic and the 
Pacific, now, I shall vote for these roads ; and, if hereafter, my vote 
may ever be brought in question. I have but this to say : no man who 
Ciin observe tlie condition in which this bill is to-day in the Senate, 
can do otherwise than know, that unless we do, within a very few days, 
pass the measure, substantially as it is, we cannot pass it this session, 
and we risk it forever. 

" The bill, in my judgment, is far from perfect. As an original bill, 
I think — as I have said before — there ought to be but one road, one 
great highway of nations and of empires ; not for one Government, 
nor for one day, nor for one generation, but for all the world, and all 
the advancing generations who may partake of its benefits and its 
blessings. But, in an age of compromise, and in a Government of 
compromise, I find that we have, after ten years, accommodated our- 
selves to each others opinions ; so that now, with two roads, we may 
pass a bill, may get it through this body, and it may receive the sanction 
of the President of the United States. Shall I, can I, dare I risk the 
measure to which the hopes, the prayers, the aspirations of so many 
thousands, distant very far from here, have been directed so long ? 
And with all humility, without offering my own example for other 
people to follow at all, I hope I may say to my friends on this side of 
Chamber : Gentlemen, if the road does not suit you in its locality, if 
you want one more or one less, let me beseech you to take this now, 
lest, indeed, we lose all." 

Mr. Baker was a firm friend and advocate of the 
Pacific Kailroad project, from its inception, and to attain 
that much desired end, he was willing to sacrifice any 
personal preference for a particular route, though such 



EDWARD D. BAKER, 89 

an one might have been more acceptable to his immedi- 
ate constituents. He had assisted in buildiDg the 
Panama Eaih'oad ; had witnessed its complete success, 
exceeding the highest anticipations of its projectors ; 
and he foresaw with the eye of a seer, that the span- 
ning of the continent with a belt of iron, from New 
York to San Francisco, would not only strengthen the 
bonds of the Union, but revolutionize to a considerable 
extent the commerce of the world, and bring the rich 
treasures of the Orient directly to our doors. Could he 
have lived until the present day, Avhen this prodigious 
enterprise is a fait accompli, and been present at the recent 
memorable celebration of its completion — and no one 
would have enjoyed the occasion more than himself — 
he would likely have made a speech which would have 
entirely eclipsed all his former efforts in the way of 
oratory, and outshone others, as does the "golden spike," 
which lifts its glittering head beneath the shadow of 
the Sierra Nevada, outshine its fellows. 

During the same session, Senator Baker made remarks, 
more or less extended, on the Army Bill, the Tariff Bill, 
and the bill for expenses incurred in our hostilities with 
the Indians in Oregon. He also, on March 1st, 1861, 
delivered a pertinent and convincing speech in support 
of the joint resolutions proposing amendments to the 
Constitution of the United States, known as the 



In the hope that their adoption by Congress, and sub- 
mission to the people of the several States for ratification, 
8 



90 THE LIFE OF 

would tend to restore peace to a distracted country^ 
The plan of our work will not permit the introduction 
of the whole of this speech ; but the subjoined co2:)ious 
extracts may serve to illustrate its general style, tone^ 
and mode of treatment of the complicated and perplex, 
ing questions at issue between the two sections' of the 
Confederacy : 

*' Mr. President, I mean to vote for the passage of these proposed 
amendments just as they are, without any change ; and I propose to 
give, very briefly, a few of the reasons which govern my judgment in 
the act. 

'* In the first place, I feel that I am submitting to the people of the 
whole country, amendments which they, and they only, can incorporate 
into the present Constitution ; and I do not believe that, in any state 
of the case, I can do very wrong in doing that ; but when I consider 
the immediate condition of the country, I feel that I am doing very 
right. Twenty States assemble in what is called the peace convention. 
They recommend to us, in times of great trial and difficulty, the 
passage of these resolutions. They are eminent men ; they are — very 
many of them — great men; they have been selected by the States 
which they represent, because of their purity of character and ability. 
The country is in great trouble. Six States have seceded ; and I am 
told by many men, in whom I have great confidence, that their States 
are to-day trembling in the balance. I believe it. I am told — but 
upon that subject I have not yet made up my mind — that the adoption 
of these measures by the people will heal the differences with the 
border States. I do not believe that I can do wrong, therefore, in 
giving the people of the whole Union a chance to determine these 
questions. 

"In the beginning, I voted against the propositions of the distinguish- 
ed Senator from Kentucky. (Mr. Crittenden.) Even then, I did not 
perceive any great harm in submitting any propositions to the people 
of the United States, which circumstances might appear to render 
necessary for any good purpose. I refused to vote for them for two 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 91 

reasons: first, I believed something better might be attained; and 
second, I did not believe that the people of the States would agree to 
them. I do not believe it ©ow, and for one simple reason : I think I 
nmy consider myself, in some respects, a representative of the opinion 
as well as the power of my own people. I am a Republican, a zealous 
and determined one. I have all my life been of the opinion that 
Congress ought not to protect slavery, and to extend the dominion of 
this Government for that purpose, or with that possibility. A great 
many in the North, who are not Eepublicans, but are what we call 
Douglas men, have shown at the last election, under something of 
trial and sacrifice, that they too, do not believe that the Constitution 
does, or ought to extend slavery. I am not disposed to give up that 
opinion ; I do not believe they are. I was not disposed to give up 
when six States were in the Union, which are now out, as they say ; 
and I am not disposed to give it up yet. Independently of pride of 
opinion, I do not believe that kind of sacrifice would acomplish any 
good result, 

" These are the reasons, in short, which induced me to vote, with 
regret, against the propositions of the distinguished Senator from 
Kentucky in the earlier part of the session. But now, we are within 
two days of adjournment, propositions essentially variant in their 
character to those, are submitted here ; and I am asked : * will you, 
in your representative capacity, submit these to your people for their 
decision, either to accept or reject ?' Now, why not ? 1 need not 
dwell upon the fact that, while we are a representative, we are at the 
same time a democratic Government. I will not shut my eyes to the 
iact, that, though the Republican party is in a constitutional majority, 
it is not yet, and it never has been, in an actual majority ; and I do not 
believe it possible for one third of the people to coerce the opinion of 
two thirds. * * * 

Mr. Wilkinson. "I understood the Senator to say that twenty 
States appealed to us. 

Mr. Baker. " Yes, sir, just as I say the Government appeals to 
another Government. I -do not say every individual in it; just as I 
say Congress appeals to another Government, not every individual 
member of Congress ; but I do say, in the words of the proposition 



92 THE LIFE OF 

before us, that ' tbey', the Peace Convention, composed of the States 
recited, ' have approved what is herewith recited, and respectfully 
request that your honorable body will submit it to conventions in the 
States, as article thirteen of the amendments to the Constitution of 
the United States.' That is all I said, or meant to say. 

" Now, sir, suppose that every argument that the distinguished 
Senators from Virginia have brought to bear on this proposition is 
true, what then? Is that any reason why it should not be submitted 
to the people? Suppose they do not approve of it, *vhat then ? It is 
their business, not ours. And suppose they should, it is a measure of 
peace, of security, of union. Sir, I know, as you do, many of the 
members of that Convention. I have acted with them as Whigs in 
old times, and I wish they could come back, I know that they have 
proved in former times, as they will prove again, that they love this 
Union to the very depth and core of their hearts. I do not propose 
to give them up ; I do not propose to weaken them ; I do admire, with 
my whole heart, the sacrifice of opinion which they make, and which 
is typified by the noble expression of the distinguished Senator from 
Kentucky to-day. Party or no party. North or no North, I, at least, 
will meet them half way. My State is far distant. She had no 
members in that Convention. I do not know whether she will approve 
this measure ; but I know it will neither hurt that State nor me, to 
give her a chance to determine. I know very well that the Senators 
from Virginia do not approve it. That is the reason why I do. 
(Laughter.) If I was sure they would not think me guilty of disrespect, 
I would remind them of what was said by a distinguished man in old 
times. Phocian, in the last days of his Republic — and I hope in that 
respect, at least, there will be no parallel — Phocian was once making 
a speech to the Athenian people, and something he said excited very 
great applause. Ho turned around to the friends near him, and 
remarked : * what foolish thing have I been saying that these people 
praise me ?' Sir, if Virginia, represented as she is here to-day, and as 
she has been during this session — not as I think she retJIy is — were to 
approve these propositions, I should doubt them very much indeed. 
* -X- * * ******* 

*' Mr. President, let us be just to these propositions. As a 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 93 

Republican, I give up somothing when I vote for them ; but, sir, I am 
not voting for them now ; I am only voting to submit them to my 
people ; and I shall go before them, when the time comes, being 
governed in my own opinion as to whether they should vote for them 
or not, as I see that Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina 
and Missouri, by their people, desire. To be frank, sir, if this propo- 
sition will suit the, Border States, if there will be peace, and union, 
and loyalty and brotherhood, with this, I will vote for it at the polls, 
with all my heart and soul; but if I see that the counsels of the 
Senators from Virginia shall prevail-; if my noble friend from Tennes- 
see (Mr. Johnson) shall be overwhelmed ; if secession shall still grow 
in the public mind there ; if they are determined, upon artificial causes 
of complaint,' as I believe, still to unite their fate, their destiny, their 
hope, with the extremest South, then, perceiving them to be of no 
avail, I shall refuse them. Therefore, at the polls at last, I shall be 
governed as an individual citizen by my conviction at the moment of 
what the ultimate result of these propositions will be — but I am not 
voting for that to-day. I am saying : ' People of the United States, I 
submit it to you'; twenty States demand it; the peace of the country 
requires it ; there is dissolution in the atmosphere ; States have gone 
off; others threaten; the Queen of England upon her throne declares 
to the whole world her sympathy with our unfortunate condition ; 
foreign Governments denote that there is danger, to-day, that the 
greatest Confederation the world has ever seen is to be parted in pieces, 
never to be united.' Now, not what I wish, not what I want, not what 
I would have, but all that I can get, is before me. If the people of 
Oregon do not like it, they can easily reject it. If the people of 
Pennsylvania will not have it, they can easily throw it aside. If they 
do not believe there is danger of dissolution, if they prefer dissolu- 
tion, if they think they can compel fifteen States to remain in, or 
come back, or if they believe they will not go out, let them reject it. 
I repeat again, it is their business, not mine. 

"But, sir, whether I vote for it or not, in voting for it here, it may 
be said that I give up some of my principles. Mr. President, we 
sometimes mistake our opinions for our principles. I am appealed to 



94 THE LIFE OP 

often — it is said tome: 'you believed in the Chicago platform.' 
Suppose I did. ' Well, this varies from the Chicago platform.' Suppose 
it does. I stand to-day, as I believe, in the presence of greater events 
than those which attend the making of a President. I stand, as I 
believe, in the presence of peace and war, and if it were true that I 
did violate the Chicago platform, the Chicago platform is not the 
Constitution of the United States to me. If events, if circumatauces 
change, I will violate it, appealing to my conscience, to my country, 
and to my God, to justify me according to the motive. 
• •'^Again, sir, how mucii do I give up ? I have said, as a Republican, 
that Congress has the power to prohibit slavery in all the Territories of 
the United States. I believe it to-day. Talking about giving up, there 
are a good many other people that give up something here. Gentle, 
men on the other side, who have been contending that Congress had 
DO power whatever to prohibit slavery, acknowledge that they were 
mistaken ; at any rate they go for it ; they prohibit it by law, by the 
Constitution itself. Therefore, I am not the only man Miio gives up. 
"Again : I believe it is wrong, politically wrong — I am not now 
discussing the social and moral -question — to establish slavery in the 
name of freedom. Sir, twelve years ago, or more, it was my fortune 
to wander in a foreign land, beneath the stars and stripes of my country. 
I went there, as I think, impelled by motives of patriotism, perhaps 
having mingled with them not a little desire of adventure, love of 
change, and that feverish excitement for which we people of this 
country are always and everywhere remarkable ; but I believe that I 
<did suppose I was doing something to repay the country for much she 
had done for me. Sir, often and again, wandering sometimes beneath 

' Where Orizaba's purpled sunnnit shone,' 
sometimes by the dark pestilential river that marks the boundary 
between the two countries, often and often have I wondered by myself 
whether I was wandering and suffering there to spread slavery over an 
unwilling people. I am not sorry to see that now that is rendered 
impossible ; first, in the course of events ; but if it were not so^ I 
know, if these propositions shall pass, that the foul blot of slavery 
never wijl be extended >over one foot of Territory to be taken or 
conquered by the people of the United States. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 95 

" But, I am asked, ' what do J'ou say about New Mexico-?' I will tell 
you in twenty words. I am an older Kepubliean than many of those I 
see around me, who vote to-day differently from me. I voted, in 1850, 
on the floor of the other Ho\j^e, against the compromise measures of 
that year. I did so, among other reasons, because I was not willing 
that Utah and New Mexico should become slave or free according to 
the wishes of their people, believing as I did, (I have changed my 
opimon in some respects since) that that was not best for the whole 
country. Contrary to my wishes, those compromise measures pre- 
vailed. New Mexico now is nominally a slave Territory ; that is, to use 
the words of the distinguished Senator from New York, (Mr. Seward) 
there are some twenty slaves in the whole Territory. There they may, 
probably will, remain. I submit to the people a proposition, that if 
they approve it as a compromise, as a concession, for peace and union, 
as it happens that that little Territory includes all that can possibly be 
slave territory, they will let it alone until the people are able and 
willing to make their own State Constitution. 

" Again, It is said on the Republican side, that we protect slavery. 
In one sense we do, and in another we do not. When the resolutions 
of the Senator from Kentucky were up the other day, I voted for the 
amendment of the other Senator from Kentucky (Mr. Powell) in order 
to make them clear, to show what I was voting against. I was unwil- 
ling that territory, hereafter to be acquired, should be rendered slave 
territory ; and I put that proposition distinctly in it, so that when I 
voted against them, it might be seen how and why I did it. As I have 
said, this proposition renders that impossible. First, it refers only to 
the territory we now possess — that is New Mexico alone. As for the 
territory north of 36 30 , I need not speak. We know that God 
Almighty has registered a decree that that shall never be slave. We, 
on our part, want no Wilmot Proviso there ; we all agree that we are 
willing to let it alone. South, there is the barren Territory of New 
Mexico. Beyond that, who knows ? If we are to acquire it, we are to 
acquire it by this proposition, by the assent of a majority of the States 
of both sections, and two thirds of the whole ; and I do not know a 
man living who believes that, with that prohibition incorporated in the 
<^onstitution, slavery is probable, or even possible. 



96 THE LIFE OP 

''Therefore, Mr. President, I agree* that in the compromise, I, as a 
Republican, do give up to that extent, and no more, what I have said ; 
but doing that, I believe that I consecrate all the territory between 
here and Cape Horn, to freedom, with ail its blessings forever. 
* * * * * * * * * * * 

Mr. President, I should be excessively pleased, as a partisan and a 
man, if the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln could be one at which all the 
States would attend with the old good feeling, and the old good hi^nor. 
I have seen six States separate themselves, as they say, from us, and 
form a new confederacy, with great pain and greater surprise. I can- 
not shut my eyes, if I would, to the existing state of things. I listen 
to the warning of my friend, from Tennessee. I have been in both 
States. I know something of their people. I believe that there, even 
there, the Union is in danger ; and I believe if we break up here 
without some attempt to reconcile them to us, and us to them, many 
of the predictions of friends and foes as to the danger will be accom- 
plished. I said in the earlier part of the session — I repeat it — I will 
yield nothing to secession. When the Representatives from South 
Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana, came here invoking war, telling us 
that if we did not yield to them, they would secede, would break up 
the Union, would confederate with foreim governments, would hold us 
as aliens and strangers and enemies, I believed then, as I believe now, 
that that was too dear a price to pay even for union and peace ; but , 
to-day the case is altered. Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, reiterate 
their love for the Union. They tell us in unmistakable terms that 
they desire to remain ; and in every county, nay, in every township of 
those States, we have staunch and true and ardent friends, who would 
be willing to seal their devotion to this Union with their blood. It is 
they to whose appeal I would listen. It is from them that I would take 
counsel and advice ; and when they tell me, ' pass these resolutions ; 
they are resolutions of peace ; submit them to your people ; listen to 
what ours say in reply ; if it appears to you at the polls that these 
resolutions will produce peace, restore the Union, create or renew 
fraternal feeling, pass them ; let us settle this question, and be one 
people,' I agree with all my heart, I will do it. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 97 

" Besides, sir, what else can I do ? As I sit down let me ask Sena- 
tors on every side, what else can any of us do ? Shall we sit here for 
three months, when petition, resolution, acclamation, tumult is heard, 
seen, and felt on every side, and do nothing? Shall State after State 
go out, and not warn us of danger ? Shall Senators, Representatives, 
patriotic, eloquent, venerable, tell us again and again of danger in 
their States, and we condescend to make no reply ?" 

On the day succeeding the delivery of the ibregoinf; 
speech, when, in a debate in the Senate on the same subject, 
Mr. Baker's position was assailed by Senator Trumbull, 
and other Eepublican Senators, he replied with becom- 
ing spirit, and in the course of his remarks used the 
following pointed language : 

"Mr. President: In the earlier days of the session, I seized what 
was rather a remarkable occasion to say, that, in my judgment, secession 
liad no warrant in the Constitution, that it was disorganizing and de- 
structive. I said so then, and believe it still ; and sir, if I may add my 
sentiments to my conviction, I may say further, if that time shall come, 
when, in the judgment of the whole country, under the auspices of a 
new Administration, in the presence of the world, it shall be necessary 
for the peace of the Union, and for the preservation of the great 
principles of free government, to put down secession by force, I Avill 
not be behind those who profess themselves willing to lead the advance 
now. But, sir, I am so fearful of the effect of the secession of seven 
States, that I do want, in my heart, to avoid tWe secession of fifteen." 

The propositions of the Peace Conference, it is known, 
were strenuously opposed by the extreme men in Con- 
gress from both sections of the Union, and the measure 
consequently failed, as, in like manner, did the " Border 
State," and the " Crittenden — Douglas Compromise." 

It should be remembered to Baker's honor as a public 
man, that, during this most troubled and momentous 
9 



98 THE LIFE OF 

session of the National Legislature, he was one of the 
few Senators of the dominant party, who seemed to 
fully comprehend the magnitude of the issues presented, 
to appreciate the dangers which beset the Republic, and 
who manifested a hearty willingness to meet the great 
crisis in a spirit of liberality, conciliation, and wise state- 
manship, which, had it been more generally imitated and 
sustained, might have led to a very different result from 
that of a protracted and ruinous internecine war. 

And yet, when a little later, the portentous storm of 
war, Avhich had long been gathering in the southern 
horizon, burst upon the land in all its fury, he hesitated 
not as to the course he should pursue ; but buckled on 
his armor, and nerved himself to engage in the terrible 
and bloody strife. 

HE SPEAKS IxN NEW YORK CITY — ENTERS THE FIELD IN THE 
WAR OF THE REBELLION. 

On the 20th of April— a few days after the fall of 
Fort Sumter — while the cry to arms was being echoed 
and re-echoed from the Capital to the utmost limit of 
tbe Confederacy, Colonel Baker spoke in Union Park, 
New York City, to one of the largest assemblages ever 
enchained by the eloquence of a single man. In closing 
his stirring address, he dedicated himself anew to the 
service of his country in these grandly elocpient words, 
which were greeted with tremendous applause: 

"And if, from the far Pacific, a voice, feebler than the 
" feeblest murmur on its shore, may be heard to give 



1)9 

" you courage and hope in this contest, that voice is 
" 3^ours to-day. And if a man, whose hair is graj^, who 
" is well nigh worn out in the battle and toil of life, 
" may pledge himself on such an occasion, and to such 
"an audience, let me say, as my last word : that as when, 
" amid sheeted fire and flame, I saw and led the hosts 
" of New York, as they charged in contest upon a 
" foreign soil for the honor of your flag ; so, again, if 
" Providence shall will it, this feeble hand shall draw a 
^' sword, never yet dishonored — not to fight for distant 
" honor in a foreign land — but to fight for country, for 
'^ government, for constitution, for law, for right, for 
'• freedom, for humanity ; and in the hope that the 
" banner of our country may advance, and whersoever 
" that banner waves, there may glory pursue and free- 
" dom be established." 

Unlike some of our modern school of patriots. Baker 
was a man of action as well as of words. He at once 
commenced work in earnest, by recruiting, in Philadel- 
phia and vicinity, what was called his '' California 
Regiment ;" Avhich being soon filled to the maximum 
number Avas accepted by the Government, and mustered 
into service. President Lincoln, about this time, tendered 
him a Brigadier General's commission , but he declined 
the proftered honor, probably because it would have 
vacated his seat in the Senate. 

IITS Mj:3i:0RABLE REPLY TO SENATOR BRECKENRIDGE. 

At the first session of the 37th Congress, convoked 
b)^ proclamation of the President on July 4th, 1861, 



100 THE LIFE OF 

Senator Baker waw in his seat, and participated promi- 
nently in the passage of those important measures 
whieli became necessary to place the nation upon a war 
looting. 

During this session, pending the debate in the Senate 
on the " Insurrection and Sedition bill," he made his 
famous impromptu reply to Senator John C. Brecken- 
ridge, of Kentuck3^ This speech created a very marked 
sensation at the time, and is thought by some to have 
been the happiest effort of his life. It is, indeed, a most 
admirable specimen of impassioned declamation, and 
merits scrutiny as a model of its class. After address- 
ing himself first, to the merits of the bill in cjuestion 
he spoke as follows : 

" I agree that we ought to do all we can to Hmit, to restrain, to 
fetter the abuse of military power. Ba3'ouets are at best illogical 
arguments. I am not willing, except as a case of sheerest necessity, 
ever to permit a military commander to exercise authority over life, 
liberty and property. But, sir, it is part of the law of war ; you can- 
not organize juries ; you cannot have trials according to the forms and 
ceremonials of the common law amid the clangor of arms ; and some- 
body' must enforce police regulations in a conquered or occupied 
district. I ask the Senator from Kentucky again, respectfully, is that 
unconstitutional ; or if in the nature of war it must exist, even if there 
be no law passed by us to allow it, is it unconstitutional to allow it ? 
That is the question, to which I do not think he will make a clear and 
distinct reply. 

" Now, sir, I have shown him two sections of the bill, which I do 
not think he will repeat earnestly are unconstitutional. I do not think 
he will seriously deny that it is perfectly constitutional to limit, 
to regulate, to control, and at the same time to confer and restrain 
authority in the hands of militarv coonnanders. I think it is wise and 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 101 

judicious to regulate it by virtue of powers to be placed in the hands 
of the President, by laAv. 

" Xow, a few words in reference to the Senator's predictions. The 
Senator from Kentucky stands up here in a manly way, in opposition 
to what he sees is the overwhelming sentiment of the Senate, and 
utters malediction and prediction combined. Well, sir, it is not every 
prediction that is prophecy. It is the easiest thing in the world to 
do ; there is nothing easier, except to be mistaken when we have pre- 
dicted. I confess, Mr. President, that I would not have predicted 
three weeks ago the disasters which have overtaken our arms, and I 
do not think that, six months hence, the Senator will indulge in the 
same prediction which is his favorite key now, I would ask him what 
would you have us do ? A Confederate army within twjenty miles of 
us, advancing, or threatening to advance to overwhelm your Govern- 
ment, to shake the pillars of the Union, to bring them around your 
head, if you stay here, Ai'e we to stop and talk about an uprising of 
the popular sentiment in the North against the war? Are we to pre- 
dict evil, and then retire from what we predict ? Is it not the more 
manly part to go on as we have begun, to raise money, and levy armies, 
to organize them, and prepare to advance, by all the laws and regula- 
tions that civilization arid humanity allow in time of war ? Can we do 
anything more ? To talk about stopping is idle ; we will never stop- 
Will the Senator yield to rebellion ? Will he shrink from armed 
insurrection ? "Will his State justify it ? Will its better public senti- 
ment allow it ? Shall Ave send a flag of truce ? What would he have 
us do? Or would he conduct this war so feebly that the whole world 
would smile at us in derision ? 

" These speeches of his, thrown broadcast over the land, what clear 
distinct meaning have they ? Are they not intended to animate our 
enemies ? Sir, are they not words of brilliant, polished treason, even 
in the Capitol of our Confederacy ? What would have been thought, 
if in another Capital, in another Republic, and in a yet more martial 
age, a Senator as grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the Sena- 
tor from Kentucky, yet with the Roman purple flowing over his shoulders, 
had risen from his place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman 
glory, and declared thatadvancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage 



102 THE LIFE OF 

should be dealt with in terms of mercy ? What would have been 
thought, if after the battle of Cannnc, a Senator had then risen in his 
place, and denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expendi- 
ture of its treasure, and every appeal to old recollections and old 
glories ? Sir, a Senator, *hiraself far more learned in such lore, tells 
me in a voice I am glad is audible, tliat he would have been hurled 
from the Tarpcian Rock. It is a grand commentary on the American 
Constitution that we permit these words to be uttered. 

" I ask the Senator to recollect to what, save to send aid "and com- 
fort to the enemy, do these predictions of his amount to? Every word 
thus uttered fall as a note of inspiration upon every Confederate ear. 
Every sound thus uttered is a word (and foiling from his lips, a mighty 
word) of kindling and triumph, to a foe that is determined to advance. 
For me, I have no such words as the Senator, to utter. For me, amid 
temporary defeat, disaster and disgrace, it seems that my duty calls 
me to utter another word, and that word is bold, sudden, forward, 
determined war, according to the laws of war — by armies, by military 
commanders, clothed with full power, advancing with all the past 
glories of the Republic urging them on to conquest. 

" I do not stop to consider whether it is subjugation or not. It is 
compulsory obedience ; not to my will, not to yours, sir ; not to the 
will, of any one man ; not to the will of any one State ; but compulsory 
obedience to the Constitution of the whole country. The Senator 
chose tlio other day, again and again, to animadvert on a single 
expression in a little speech which I delivered before the Senate, 
in which I took occasion to say, that if the people of the rebellious 
States would not govern themselves as States, tliey ought to be 
governed as Territories. The Senator knew full well, for I ex- 
plained it twice, that on this side of the Chamber, nay, in this whole 
Chamber ; nay, in the whole North and West ; nay, in all the 
Loyal States, in all their length and breadth, there is not a man among 
us all who dreams of causing any man in the South to submit to any 
rule, either as to life, liberty or property, that we ourselves do not 
willingly agree to yield to. Did he ever think of that ? When we 

* The late Wrn. P. Fesseucleu. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 103 

subjugate South Carolina, what shall we do ? We shall compel 
obedience to the Constitution of the United States ; that is all. We 
do not mean, we have never said, any more. If it be slavery that 
men should obey the Constitution their fatliers fought for, let it be so. 
If it be freedom, it is freedom equally for them and us. We propose' 
to subjugate rebellion into loyalty ; we propose to subjugate insurrection 
into peace ; we propose to subjugate Confederate anarchy into Con- 
stitutional Union liberty. The Senator well knows that we propose no 
more. I ask him, I appeal to his better judgment now; what does he 
imagine we intend to do, if, fortunately, we conquer Tennessee or South 
Carolina — call it ' conquer' if you will. Sir, what do we propose to 
do ? They will have their courts still ; they will have their ballot 
boxes still ; they will have their elections still ; they will have their 
representatives upon this floor still ; they will have the writ of Habeas 
Corpus still ; they will have every privilege they ever had, and all we 
desire. When the Confederate armies are scattered ; when their 
leaders are banished from power ; wlicn the people return to a late 
repentent sense of the wrong they have done to a Government they 
never felt but in benignancy and blessing, then the Constitution , made 
for all, will be felt by all alike, like the descending rains from heaven, 
which bless all alike. Is that subjugation V To restore what was for 
the benefit of the whole country, and of the whole human race, is all 
we desire, and all we can have. 

"Gentlemen talk about the North-cast. I appeal to Senators from 
the North-east: is there a man in all j'our States, who advances upon 
the South with any other idea but to restore the Constitution of the 
United States in its spirit and in its unity ? I never heard that one. 
I believe that no man indulges in any dream of inflicting there any 
wrong to public liberty, and I respectfully tell the Senator from 
Kentucky that he persistently, earnestly, I will not say willfully, mis- 
represents the sentiment of the North and West, when he attempts 
to teach these doctrines to the confederates of the South. 

*' Sir, while I am predicting, I will tell you another thing. This 
threat about money and men amounts to nothing. Some of the States 
which have been named in that connection, I know will. I know, as 
my friend from Illinois will bear me w^itness, his own State very well. 



104 THE LIFE OF 



I am sure that no temporary defeat, no inomentary dit^grace, wi 
swerve that State either from its allegiance to the Union, or from itfe 
determination to preserve it. It is not with us a question of money or 
of blood ; it is a question involving considerations higher than these. 
When the Senator from Kentucky speaks of the Pacific, I see another 
distinguished friend from Illinois, now worthily representing one of the 
States on the Pacific, (Mr. McDougall) who will bear me witness that I 
know that State, too, well. I take the liberty — I know I but utter his 
sentiments in advance — joining with him, to say, that that State 
(quoting from the passage the gentleman himself has quoted,) will )>e 
true to the Union to the last of her blood and treasure. There may be 
there some disalFeeted; there maybe some few men there, who would 
rather * rule in hell than serve in heaven.' There are such men every- 
where. There are a few men there, who have left the South for the 
good of the South ; who are perverse, violent, destructive, revolution- 
ary, and opposed to social order. A few, but very few, thus formed 
and thus nurtured, in California and in Oregon, both persistently 
endeavoring to create and maintain mischief; but the great portion ol 
our population arc loyal to the core, and in every chord of their hearts. 
They are offering through me — more to their own Senators every day, 
from California and, indeed, from Oregon — to add to the legions of 
this country by the hundred and the thousand. They are willing to 
come thousands of miles with their arms on their shoulders, at their 
own expense, to share with the offering of their hearts blood in the 
great struggle for constitutional liberty, I tell the Senator that his 
predictions, sometimes for the South, sometimes for the Middle States, 
sometimes for the North-cast, and then wandering in airy visions out 
to the far Pacific, about the dread of our people as for loss of blood 
and treasure, provoking them to disloyalty, are false in fact, and false 
in theory. The Senator from Kentucky is mistaken in them all. Five 
hundred million dollars ! What then ? Great Britian gave more than 
two thousand millions in the great battle for constitutianal liberty 
which she led, at one time, almost single handed against the world. 
Five hundred thousand men ! What then ? We have them ; they 
are the children of the country. They belong to the whole country ; 
they are our sons, our kinsmen ; and there are many of us who will 



i 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 105 

give them all up before we will abate one word of our just demand, or 
will retreat one inch from the line which divides right from wrong, 

" Sir, it is not a question of men or money. All the money, all the 
men, are, in our judgment, well bestowed in such a cause. When we 
give them, we know their value well; we give them with the uiore 
pride and joy. Sir, how can we retreat ? Sir, how can we make 
peace ? Who will treat ? What Commissioners ? Who go ? Upon 
what terms ? Where is to be your boundary line ? Where the end 
of the principles we shall have to give up ? What will become of 
constitutional government ? What will become of past glories ? What 
of future hopes ? Shall we sink into the insignificance of the grave, a 
degraded, defeated, emasculated people — frightened by the results of 
one battle, and scared by the visions raised by the imagination of the 
Senator from Kentucky upon this floor. No, sir, a thousand times no. 
We will rally, if, indeed, our words be necessary ; we will rally the 
people, the loyal people of the country. They will pour forth their 
treasures, their money, their men, without stint and without measure. 
The most peaceful man in this body may stamp his foot upon this 
Senate floor, as of old a warrior and Senator did, and from that single 
stamp there will spring forth armed legions. Shall one battle, or a dozen 
battles, determine the fate of an empire — the loss of one thousand 
men or twenty thousand men — the expenditure of -$100,000,000 or 
$500,000,000. In a year peace, in ten years at most of peaceful pro- 
gress, we can restore them all, 

*' There will be some graves reeking with blood, watered by the 
tears of aff'ection. There will be some privation ; there will be some 
loss of luxury ; there will be somewhat more need of labor to procure 
the necessaries of life. When this is said, all is said. If we have the 
country, the whole country, the Union, the Constitution, free govern- 
ment — with these will return all the blessings of a well ordered civili- 
zation. The path of the country will be a career of greatness and glory, 
such, as in the olden times, our fathers saw in the dim visions of years 
yet to come, and such as would have been ours to-day, had it not 
been for that treason for which the Senator from Kentucky too often 
seeks to apologize." 

10 



lOG THE LIFE OF 

THE BATTLE OF ••' EALL's P.LUFF" — COL. BAKER's DEATH. 

On the iidjouriniient of thcj?poeial session of Congress. 
Colonel Baker rejoined his regiment in the field, which 
"was attached to, and formed a part of, the Arm}- of 
Observation on the Potomac. lie, however, was rest- 
less and nneasy in camp. A vague presentimeiU of his 
approaching fate seemed to haunt and oppress him 
wherever he went. A short time previous to the san- 
guinary conflict in which he was slain, he is reported as 
having said to a friend: that, '-since his campaign in 
.Mexico, he could never afford to turn his back upon an 
enemy," and expressed the opinion that he woiihl fall 
in the first encounter, lie returned to Washington, 
and settled all his affairs. '-He went to say farewell to 
the family of the President. A lady — who in her (then) 
high position was still gracefully mindful of early 
friendship — gave him a boquet of late flowers. ' Very 
beautiful,' he said, quietly, ' These flowers and my 
memory will wither together.' At night he hastily 
reviewed his papers. lie indicated upon each its proper 
disposition, ' in case I should not return.' He pressed 
with quiet earnestness u])()n his friend, CoL "Webb, Avho 
de])recated such ghostly instructions, the measures 
which might become necessary in regard to the resting- 
place of his moi'tal remains. .Vll this Avithout any 
ostentation, jle performed all these offices, with the 
coolness of a soldier and a man of aflairs, then mounted 
his horse and rode gayl}' awa}^ to his death.'' 

"On the 20th ot October, 1861, the movement of 
General McCall upon Dranesville having excited the 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 107 

attention of the enemy at Leesburg, and a regiment of 
gray uniforms having been observed cautiously advanc- 
ing from the west and taking position behind a hill 
near Edwards' Ferry, Gen. Stone, comanding the army 
of observation on the Potomac, resolved upon armed 
reconnoissance to ascertain the position and feel the 
strength of the confederate force across the river. A 
scouting party sent out from Conrad's Ferry, scoured 
the country rapidly in the direction of Leesburg, and 
when within about a mile from the town were suddenly 
confronted by what, in the uncertain light, appeared to be 
rows of tents, but W' hich were afterwards ascertained to be 
merel}^ openings in the frontage of the w^oods. Upon 
this report, brought back by the mistaken scouts. Col. 
Uevens, of the Massachusetts Fifteenth, was ordered to 
attack and destroy the supposed camp at daybreak, and 
return to Harrison's Island, between Conrad's and 
Edwards' Ferries, or, in case he found no enemy, to hold 
a secure position and await sufficient force to reconnoiter. 
Colonel Baker was ordered to have his Californians at 
Conrad's Ferry at sunrise, and the rest of his brigade 
to move early. 

'^ Col. Devens crossed the Potomac and proceeded to 
the point indicated, and General Stone ordered a party 
of Van Allen's cavalry, under Major Mix, accompanied 
by that most accomplished of English dragoons, Captain 
Stewart, to advance along the Leesburg road, and 
ascertain the condition of the heights in the vicinity of 
the enemy's battery near Goose Creek. This w^as per- 
formed in dashing style. They came upon a Mississippi 



^ 



108 ^HE LIFE OF 

rcg'iment, received and returned its fire, and brought 
oft' a prisoner. 

'' Meantime, Colonel Devens had discovered the error 
in regard to the supposed encampment, and had been 
attacked by a superior force of tiie enemy (under com- 
mand of Gen. Evans) and fallen back in good order upon 
the position of Colonel Lee, who had been posted to 
support him on the bluff. Presently he again advanced, 
his men, as General Stone reported, behaving admirably, 
fighting, retiring and advancing in order, and exhibit- 
ing every proof of high courage and good discipline. 

"At this juncture, Colonel Baker, who, early in the 
morning (of the 21st) had conferred with the command- 
ing general at Edwards' Ferry, and received his orders 
from him, began transporting his brigade across the 
the narrow but deep channel that ran between Harrison's 
Island and the Virginia shore. The means of transpor- 
tation were lamentably deficient — three small boats and 
a scoAV, which 'the soldiers say was miserably heavy and 
water-logged. With such means, the crossing was slow 
and tedious. "While they were toiling across, Devcns 
and Lee, with their little commands, were in desperate 
peril in front ; the w4de battalions of the enemy closing 
around them, with savage prudence availing themselves 
of every advantage of ground, and flanking by the power 
of numbers the handful of heroes they dared not attack 
in front, Baker was not the man to deliberate long 
when the death-knell of his friends was ringing in his 
ears in the steady, continuous rattle of the rebel 
musketry. He advanced to the relief of Devens with 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 109 

a battalion of his Californians under Wistar, the most 
gallant of the fighting Quakers, and a portion of the 
20th Massachusetts. AVith this devoted band, 1720 men 
all told, for more than an hour he stood the fire of the 
surrounding and hidden foe, as from the concealing 
crescent of the trees they poured their murderous volleys. 
Eramhalland French struggled up the precipitous banks 
with a field-piece and tAvo howitzers, which did good 
service till the gunners dropped dead, and the officers 
hauled them to the rear to prevent their falling into the 
enemy's hands. Every man there fought in that hope- 
less struggle as bravely as if victory were among the 
possibilities. No thought was there of flight or surren- 
der, even when all but honor was lost. Their duty 
Avas to stand there till they Avere ordered aAvay 
Death Avas merely an incident of the performance 
of that duty ; and the coolest man there Avas the Colonel 
commanding. He talked hopefully and cheerily to his 
men, CA^en Avhile his heart Avas sinking Avith the sun, 
and the grim presence of disaster and ruin Avas AA^ith 
him. He Avas ten paces in their front, Avhere all might 
see him and take pattern by him. He carried his left 
hand nonchalantly in his breast, and criticised the 
firing as quietly as if on parade : '' LoAver, boys ! Steady 
there ! Keep cool noAV, fire Ioav, and the day is ours."* 

All at once a sudden sheet of fire burst from the 
cmwed covert of the enemy, and EdAvard Dickinson 
Baker fell pierced by eight leaden messengers, freighted 
Avith death, from the guns of the advancing foe ; and 

*Sketch of Col. Baker, by John Hay. 



110 THE LIFE OF 

his life-blood, as it quickly flowed from the mortal 
wounds, mingled with that of the thousands of others 
that had already moistened the soil of the Old Dominion, 
and made it historic ground forevei*. 

Thus died, heroically, in the ripe maturity of his 
manhood, and in the meridian of his lame, one, who 
forms but another inournful example of the truth of the 
oft-quoted line of the poet Gray — 

" The paths of glory lead but to the ^M-ave." 

As a part of the history of this battk', and of Baker's 
connection with the same, Ave insert the following copies 
of the orders (published at the time) from Gen. Stone to 
Colonel Baker, which Avere found in the lining of the 
latter's hat by Captain Young, his aid, after the ))ody 
had been taken from the field. Both orders were stained 
with Baker's blood ; and one of the bullets, Avhich Avent 
through his head, carried aAvay a corner of the first : 

"IlEAlXiUARTKRS, EuWARDs' FkRRY,) 
Oct. 2l8t, 1861. ^ 

" Col. E. D. Baker: 

" Colonel — In case of heavy firing in front of Harrison's IsUmd, you 
will advance the California regiment of your brigade, or retire the 
regiments under Colonels Lee and Devens, now on the Virginia side 
of the river, at your discretion— assuming conmiand on arrival. 
Very respectfully and truly, your obd't serv't, 

" Chas. r. Stone, Connnanding Brigade.'' 

The second order Avas deliA^n-ed on the l)attle field by 
Col. CogSAvell, Avho, in reply to a question Avhat it meant, 
said " all right, go ahead." AVhereupon Colonel Baker, 
it is said, put the order in his hat without reading it. 
An hour afterAvards he fell : 



EDWARD D. BAKER; -111 

" Hkadquarters, Corps of Observation,^ 
Edwards' Ferry, Oct. 21st, 11:50. ^ 

" E. D. Baker, Commanding Brigade : 

" Colond — I am informed that the force of the enemy is about 
4,000, all tohl. If you can push them you may do so, as far as to have 
a strong position near Leesburg if you can keep them before you, 
avoiding their batteries. If they pass Leesburg and take the Gum 
Springs road, you will not follow far, but seize the first good position 
and cover the road. Their design is to draw us on, if they are obliged 
to retreat, as fiir as Goose Creek, where they can be re-inforced from 
Manassas, and have a strong position. Report frequently, so that when 
they are puslied, Gorman can come upon their flank. 
" Yours respectfully, 

" CiiAS. r. Stone, Brig. Gen. Commanding."'^ 



HIS FUNERAL OBSEQUIES. 

Immediately upon the death of Colonel Baker, liis 
body was carried back from the battle field by his faith- 
ful comrades-in-arms, to the Maryland shore. It was 
subsequently embalmed and removed to Washington 
City. Appropriate funeral honors were there paid to his 
remains, after which they w^ere transported to New 

*It may not be improper here to remark, that General Stone was very severely 
censured by many of the public joiu-nals and public men of the day, on account 
of the disaster that befell the Federal arms at the battle of Ball's Bluft". Without 
waiting in the least for an investigation of the matter— nor is this strange, con- 
sidering the violence of men's passions and the perversity of their judgments, in 
those exciting times— they threw the entire responsiblity of the movement upon 
him. His subsequent removal from his command, his long and rigorous con- 
finemni, and final release without a trial, are a part of the history of the late war. 
In all this, great injustice was doubtless done to a gallant and patriotic officer — 
who, as we are informed, has alwaj'S claimed that, in directing the advance across 
the Potomac on that occasion, he was simply acting in obedience to orders from 
the authorities at Washington ; and hence was not to be held responsible for the 
fatal results attending that advance. 



112 THE LIFE OP 

City, and thence by Bteamcr, at the ])iiblic charge, to 
California. Safely were they borne through the portals 
of the Golden Gate at San Francisco ; sadly and aifec- 
tionately Avere thej^ received by her citizens, and 
peacefully do they now lie entombed on an elevated site, 
in Lone Mountain Cemetery of that city, overlooking the 
placid waters of her magnificent bay. 

" Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 

From the field of his fame fresh and gory ; 

We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, 
But left him alone in his glory." 

The tidings of Colonel Baker's death fell heavily upon 
the ears of the American people, accustomed though 
they were to the recital of tales of blood. He 
had won a reputation co-extensive Avith the Union by 
his eloquence in council, and his heroism in the field, 
and was linked to the hearts of the masses by many 
endearing ties, which the}^ were loth to sever. Among 
the numerous public testimonials to the merits of the 
deceased, appearing at the time, is the following general 
order issued by Major General McClellan. then in com- 
mand of the Arm}^ of the Potomac: 

" Headquarters, Army Potomac,^ 
Washington, Oct. 22d, 18C1. ) 
(General Order No. 32.) 

" The Major General Commanding, with sincere sorrow, announces 
the death of Colonel Edward D. Baker, who fell gloriously in battle on 
on the afternoon of Monday the 21st of October, [1861,1 ^^'^^^ Leesburg, 
Virginia. The gallant dead had many titles to honor. At the time 
of his death, he was a member of the United States Senate from 
Oregon ; and it is no injustice to any survivor to say, that one of the 
most eloquent voices in that illustrious body has been silenced by his 
fall. 



EDWARD D. BAKER, 113 

"As a patriot, zealous for the honor and interests of his adopted 
country, he has been distinguished in two wars, aqd has now sealed 
with his blood his devotedness to the National flag. Cut off in the 
fullness of his powers as a statesman, and in the course of a brilliant 
career as a soldier, while the country mourns his loss, his brothers in 
arras will envy, while they lament, his fate. He died as a soldier would 
wish to die, amid the shock of battle, by voice and example, animating 
his men to brave deeds. 

" The remains of the deceased will be interred in this city, with the 
honors due his rank, and the funeral arrangements will be ordered by 
Brig. Gen. Silas Casey. As an appropriate mark of respect to the 
memory of the deceased, the usual badge of mourning will be worn, for 
the period of thirty days, by the officers of the brigade lately under 
his command. 

"By command of Major Gen. McClkllan, 

" L. Williams, Ass't Adj't. General." 

Upon the assembling of Congress in December, 1861, 
the death of Senator Baker was appropriately announced 
in the Senate by his colleague, Mr. Nesmith. The 
customary resolutions were passed by both Houses, and 
speeches made eulogizing the life and public services of 
the deceased. From among the many brilliant, scholarly, 
and finished tributes to his memory on that occasion, 
we have selected the remarks of the Hon. O. H. Brown- 
ing, of Illinois ; of the late Hon. James A. McDougall, 
of California, and of the Hon. Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, 
which will be found in a subsequent part of this work. 



11 



114 THE LIFE OP 



GENERAL VIEWS OF HIS CHARACTER. 

In the preceding pages, Ave have traced, somewhat 
concisely, and imperfectly it may be, the career of 
Edward D. Baker from his cradle in the Old World, 
through a singularly eventful history of half a century, 
to his grave in the New. But before leaving our emi- 
nent subject, let us take a general survey of his character, 
and see what manner of man he w^as. 

In looking at his rather complex organization, per- 
haps the first thing to fix the attention of the .critical 
observer is his individuality — his disposition not to 
follow in the beaten track of every day existence, but 
to strike out for himself a new, and hitherto unexplored 
path in the wilderness of human life. 

Few men have had so checkered a career ; and fewer 
still have been so successful in all that they have under- 
taken, lie had that degree of self-confidence and self- 
reliance which prompted him to dare and do almost 
anything, within the limit of human exertion. This 
peculiarity he early manifested in matters Avhich were of 
but trival importance Avithin themselves. For example : 
When the captain of a military company in Springfield, 
he was known, on muster days, to take the drum out 
of the hands of the regular drummer and try his ow^n 
hand to show his young companions what an admirable 
drummer he was, or might be. Again, during his con- 
nection with the Christian church, he used to take 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 115 

the lead in singing, and believed that he could sing a 
little better, perhaps, than any one else. 

After making a speech, it was his habit — no very 
uncommon thing, however, among public speakers — to 
inquire of his friends what they thought of it ? and, 
not unfrequently, he would depreciate his best eiforts for 
the purpose of eliciting their commendation. He was 
careless of his attire, yet proud of his personal pres- 
ence. Nothing, it is said, pleased him more than to be 
told that he resembled the first Napoleon ; and there 
was some resemblance between them. 

In common with the majority of aspiring men, Colonel 
Baker loved praise, and courted popular favor ; but, un- 
like that majority, he had the ability to command both. 
He was born, as it were, with a keen thirst for glory, 
and persistently sought the bubble, reputation, even at 
the cannon's mouth. This was doubtless the main 
cause of that restless activity which marked his life. 
Hence, he was never fully satisfied with any position at- 
tained in any of the varied walks in which he trod ; 
but was all the while struggling to bring himself up to 
some ideal level, above and beyond the range of common 
effort and success. 

As an illustration of his vaulting ambition, we are 
told, that, in early manhood, while yet a resident of 
Carrollton, Illinois, he was once found by an acquaint- 
ance in a retired locality, weeping, and looking as dis- 
consolate as the exiled Marius sitting upon the ruins of 
ancient Carthage. On being interrogated as to the 
cause of his unusual grief, he replied : " Oh ! I was 



110 THE LIFK OF 



I 



just thinking how iinlueky I am to have been born in 
old England, for now, I can never be President."* 

Colonel Baker has been very properly called a " many 
sided man," presenting man}^ different phases of char- 
acter, and all of these more or less calculated to attract 
and please. "His very weaknesses became instruments 
of fascination. His egotism, his vanity and personal 
frailties, were all genial, and gave him an irresistible 
claim to sympathy." Without any of those adventitious 
advantages of family, fortune, connections or patronage; 
self prompted, self-sustained, and self-taught, [saving 
the early instruction given him by his father in 
the rudiments of knowledge] he surmounted every obsta- 
cle, carved his way to eminence, became one of the 
ornaments of the nation, and " died a Senator in Con- 
gress." For all this, he is deserving of high praise. 
But it is undeniable that hismany splendid virtues were 
alloyed with something of that dross which debases our 
common humanity, and from which the noblest natures 
are not wholl}^ exempt. It is not our purpose, now and 
here, to unveil his faults — which at the worst Avere but 
of the negative kind — and hold them up to the public 
gaze, though the great English bard has said, 

" The evil that men do lives after them, 
The good is oft interred Avith their bones." 

So, let it not be with our Baker. 

As a brilliant, fascinating, and effective forensic 
speaker, he must ever be held in high regard. He had 

•This story has long been current among Baker's old friends and boon com- 
panions ; and whether true or false, shows to some extent the character of the man. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 117, 

been led, in his youth, to embrace the profession of law, 
because the very nature of the calling afforded his mind 
excitement, and kept his faculties in active, unceasing 
play. He, moreover, very naturally, and, as society is 
constituted in this country, proj^erly viewed it as the 
main avenue to social advancement, to political influence 
and reputation, and the stepping stone to the highest 
honors attainable in a free State. When a boy, he had 
read the history of the great lights of the profession, 
both of England and America — many of whom rose 
from the humblest walks of life to wealth, to station, to 
power — and his aspiring soul burned with an unquench- 
able ardor to emulate their examples, and win for him- 
self a name which might live on the page of history, 
and in the memories of men, long after the earthly 
house of his tabernacle had dissolved and mingled with 
its mother dust. 

Possessed of the requisite natural qualifications, had 
he confined his attention solely to the law, and applied 
himself with like assiduity and perseverance, he might 
have become the Erskine of the American bar. But 
it was in other fields, rather, than the forum, that he 
sought to realize his highest ambition. 

Colonel Baker, as before noticed, commenced his 
political life as a Whig of the Henry Clay and Daniel 
Webster school, and acted with that party until its final 
dismemberment after the Presidential canvass of 1852, 
when he united his fortunes Avith the newly formed 
Rej^ublican party. His course as a politician Avas 
marked by much courtesy and liberality of sentiment 



1.1 R THE LIFE OF 

towards his opponents ; by more than ordinary boldncws 
and independence of spirit, and oft-times by the most 
enhirged and statesman-like views. Yet, upon the whole, 
he seemed to have lacked, in some degree, that solidity 
of character — that steadiness, and unyielding adherence 
to fixed principles and definite lines of public, policy, 
which are essential to the great and successful political 
leader. 

But whatever contrariety of opinion may exist with 
reference to Baker's political character and infiuence, 
it will hardly be denied that he was an orator of the 
highest order. More eminent he ma}" have been for the 
lighter graces than the severer qualities of oratory, yet 
not incapable of close, connected, logical reasoning. 
His success was no doubt partially owing to those 
superior personal attractions which he had received 
from the hand of nature; for an audience likes to look 
upon him who addresses them, reading grace and dig- 
nity in his physical form, whilst catching inspiration 
from his lips. His range and versatility as a speaker 
were such that he could command, at will, the ''applause 
of listening Senates," and, anon, the hearty plaudits of 
of an unlettered frontier audience. He was especially 
great on great occasions, generally rising above, instead 
of falling below the expectations of his hearers. 

"His voice," says Senator Sumner, " was not full or 
sonorous, but shar]3 and clear. It was penetrating rather 
than commanding; and yet when touched by his ardent 
nature, it became sympathetic, and even musical. His 
countenance, body and gesture, all showed the uncon- 
scious inspiration of his voice, and he went on — master of 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 110 

his audience^ master also of himself. All his faculties were 
complete^ at his command. Ideas, illustrations, words^ 
seemed to come unbidden, and to range themselves in 
harmonious forms, as, in the walls of ancient Thebes, 
each stone took its proper place of its own accord, 
moved only by the music of a lyre. His fame as a 
speaker Avas so peculiar, even before he appeared among 
us, that it was sometimes supposed he might lack those 
solid powders without which the oratorical faculty itself 
can exercise only a transient influence. But his speeches 
on this floor * * * showed that his matter was as good 
as his manner, and that while he was master of fence, he 
was also master of ordnance. His controversy was 
graceful, sharp, and flashing like a cimeter, but his argu- 
ment was powerful and sweeping like a battery."* 

His style was nervous, elegant and copious. Many of 
the finest passages in his speeches were put in the form 
of interrogatories, gaining thereby immeasurably in 
force and effect. His mind teemed with beautiful 
images, comparisons, poetical quotations, and classical 
allusions, which were scattered with profusion, and 
glittered like pearls among all his efl:brts. His com- 
mand of the English language, however, " was so full 
and complete as to tempt him sometimes to indulge in 
an affluence of diction, too ornate and copious to satisfy 
the strictest canons of criticism." What has been said 
concerning the style of the Irish orator, Henry Grattan, 



♦ Vide Mr. Sumner's remarks on the death of Baker, in the Congressional Globe 
for the session of 1861-2, page 54. 



120 THE LIFE OP 

by one of his biographers, may, with almost equal 
propriety, be applied to Baker's : 

"There was nothing common-place in his thoughts, his 
images, or his sentiments. Ever thing came fresh from 
his mind with the vividness of a new creation. His most 
striking charcteristic was condensation and rapidity of 
thought. His forte was reasoning, but it was ' lo_L,ic on 
fire;' and he seemed ever tojielight in flashing his ideas 
on the mind with a sudden, startling abruptness." 

The examples already supplied, will aid the reader in 
forming some idea, however inadequate, of his marvelous 
eloquence ; but much of its force and effect was neces- 
sarily lost with the delivery. The orator himself must 
have been seen and heard in order to be truly ap>preciated. 

" It requires but a very slight acquaintance with the 
laws and aptitudes of mind," says the late Bishop 
Bascom — himself one of the most eloquent of men — " to 
know that on the score of warmth, interest and impres. 
sion, the speaker has greatly the advantage over the 
writer, and the hearer over the reader. The personal, 
in speaking and hearing, is found to be very different 
from the ideal in reading and writing. With the speaker 
and hearer, the eye, hand, action, intent gaze, and 
intuitive sympathy, all have an emphasis unknown to 
the mere writer and reader. Between the latter the 
distance is greater. * * * The unstudied inspiration 
of the speaker at the moment, even when the language 
is the same — the intensified thought and feeling of 
})ublic address, are of necessity lost when the discourse 
is but simply read." 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 121 

Mrs. Welby, the poetess, has given expression to the 
same thought in these exquisitely beautiful lines : 
*' There's a cliarni in delivery, a magical art, 
That thrills like a kiss from the lips to the heart ; 
Tis the glance — the expression — the well chosen word-^ 
By whose magic the depths of the spirit are stirred ; 
The smile — the mute gesture — the soul-stirring pause — 
The eyes sweet expression, that melts while it awes=^ 
The lips soft persuasion — its musical tone : 
Oh ! such were the charms of that eloquent one." 
It is to be regretted that many of Baker's happiest 
effusions and richest gems of thought were never trans- 
ferred to paper. They passed away wuth the occasions 
that called them forth, or live only in the memories of 
those who heard them. To illustrate : In the earlier 
portion of his public life, he delivered an erudite and 
eloquent discourse on Art, before a literary societ}^ in 
Jacksonville, Illinois, which was greatly admired. At 
another time he delivered a brilliant and finished lecture 
in Springfield. Subsequently, in 1858, he made a mag- 
nificent speech at a celebration in San Francisco, on the 
occasion of laying the first Atlantic cable, which w^as 
replete with passages of the highest sublimity and 
beauty. To these may be added his multitudinous 
forensic and political harangues, some of which were 
regarded, at the time, as productions of the rarest 
merit. But he led too busy and nomadic a life to bestow 
much attention upon these scattered offspring of his 
brain, after they had served a present purpose. And, 
now, that the voiceless grave has closed over him, they, 
too, are being entombed beneath the rapidly accumu- 
lating rubbish of years. 
12 



122 THE LIFE OF 

It used to be a saying with the members of a certain 
political party in this country, that " they were always 
in favor of the next Avar." Colonel Baker might Avell 
have been classed in that list ; for whenever the nation 
became involved in war, foreign or domestic, he could 
not well keep out of it if he would, and he would not 
if he could. He loved war. Its pomp, its pageantry, 
and its glory, were all irresistibly attractive to him. 
'Nor was he unwilling to share in its hardships, its 
sufferings, its sacrifices. Brave, gallant, impetuous, ho 
unquestionably was ; yet it is questionable if his courage 
was always tempered with that coolness, that sagacity 
and discretion in movement, which characterize the 
great military chieftain. 

He Avas a thorough cosmopolitan. In the pursuit of 
the varied objects of his ambition, he Avas deterred by 
no differences of country or climate, but trod Avith 
equal firmness the Torrid as Avell as the Temperate 
zone. Had he lived in the age of the Crusades, he 
Avould doubtless haA^e assumed the cross, and led thcA^an 
in one of those AA'ild and extraA^agant expeditions to 
Avrest the Holy Land from the dominion of the Moslems. 
Or, had he flourished in the days of chiA-^alry, he Avould 
probably have turned knight-errant ; put on a helmet and 
coat of mail ; seized a lance and buckler, mounted some 
flaming steed, and sallied forth in quest of adA^entures 
and glory. 

Although not a " natiA^e to the manor born," he came 
to America in his early childhood, and Avas thoroughly 
naturalized. Our Constitution and laws, our unity, our 



EDWARD D. BAKER, 123 

honor, our glory, were all alike dear to him. For these 
he contended on the stump, and in the halls of Congress, 
with a vehemence, a power and eloquence, at times, 
almost superhuman. For these he drew his sword in 
three wars, and for these " alas! he died." 

In addition to his many other endowments, Colonel 
Baker was also a poet of no mean pretensions, as will 
appear from the following lines addressed to the Ocean 
wave, and given on the authority of one of his Congres- 
sional eulogists : 

" It were vain to ask as thou rollest afar, 
Of banner or mariner, of ship or star ; 
It were vain to seek in thy stormy face, 
Some tale of the sorrowful past to trace. 
Thou art swelling high, thou art flashing free ; 
How vain are the questions we ask of thee. 

*' I, too, am a wave on a stormy sea ; 

I, too, am a wanderer driven like thee ; 

I, too, am seeking a distant land, 

To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand ; 

For the land I seek is a waveless shore, 

And they who once reach it shall wander no more." 

With very few of our public rden can Edward Dick- 
inson Baker be compared ; for he was an original 
genius — a man of his own kind. There is one, however, 
to w^hom he bore a very considerable resemblance. We 
refer to the late Honorable S. S. Prentiss, of Mississij^pi. 
Like Prentiss, Baker was the child of poverty, and 
trained in the rugged school of adversity. Like him, he 
"^ was the builder of his own fortune — adopted the pro- 
fession of law, and rose to distinction by virtue of his 



124 THE LIFE OF 

superior gifts as an ad-Wcate. Like him, his speeches were 
"argumentative without formality, brilliant without 
gaudiness." Like him, he possessed a refined and 
scholarly taste, a poetic and imaginative soul, which 
readily appreciated, and could give expression to, all 
that was beautiful in language, glowing in sentiment, 
rich in illustration, and grand in imager}^ Like him, 
on important occasions, when called upon to speak, he 
came glowing up to his theme, and 

"Wliere fancy .weary grew in other men, 
His fresli as morning rose." 

Like him, he ardently thirsted for political honors, 
which when he had won he but lightly esteemed. 
Like him, he possessed a warm, enthusiastic and genial 
tempei*ament, which sought the companionship of 
kindred spirits, and entered with zest into all the pleas- 
ures and amusements of social life. Like Prentiss, he 
was generous to a fault ; yet, in the exuberance of that 
generosity, he, perhaps, sometimes forgot to be just. 

" Every trait of his noble nature w^as in excess. His 
very virtues leaned to faults ; and his faults themselves 
to virtues. The like of him I ne'er shall see again, so 
compounded was he of all sorts of contradictions, with- 
out a single element in him to disgust — without one 
characteristic which did not attract and charm. His 
public exhibitions Avere all splendid and glorious. He 
did anything he attempted magnificently, w^ell ; and yet 
as I knew him, he could hardly be called a man of 
business. He was a natural spendthrift, and yet despised 
debt and dependence. He was heedless of all conse- 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 125 

qnences, yet of the soundest judgment in council and 
discretion in movement. He was almost the only man 
I ever saw, whom I never heard utter a scandal ; and he 
had the least charity of any man I ever saw, for all 
kinds of baseness or meanness. He was continually, 
without ceasing, quoting classic lore, and not the least 
of a pedant. He was brave to fool-hardiness, and would 
not hurt Uncle Toby's fly."* 

But Baker, the genial companion, the shining advo- 
cate, the accomplished orator ai^d chivalrous soldier, 
has gone from among the living! gone forever to the 
shadowy realms of the spirit land ! 

"The sun that ilhimiii'd that planet of clay 

Had sunk in the west of an unclouded day, 

And the cold dews of death stood like diamonds of light, 

Thickly set in the pale dusky forehead of night ; 

From each gleamed a ray of that fetterless soul 

Which had bursted its prison, despising control, 

And careering above, o'er earth's darkness and gloom, 

Inscribed ' I still live' on the arch of the tomb." 

Illinois, during the half century of her existence as a 
State, has produced many eminent men. She can already 
boast a long catalogue of " dead heroes and statesmen," 
who severally won imperishable honor at the forum, on 
the hustings, in the Legislative halls, or by deeds of 
deathless daring on historic battle fields. The names 
of an Edwards, a Eejmolds, a Henry, a Hardin, a Ford, 
a Harris, a Bissell, a Douglas, a Lincoln, a McDougall^ 
and last, though not least, a Baker, will live as long as 

"Memoir of S. S. Prentiss, by Henry A. Wise. 



12G THE LIFE OP 

the lettered page of the State's history, and swell the 
tide of her glory. 

Be it then the province of the living, who Avould 
achieve like renown, to emulate their bright examples, 
to imitate their noble deeds, and cherish their great 
names to an everlasting memory. 



AFFENDIX. 



REMARKS or HON. (). H. BROWNING, IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON 
THE OCCASION OF THE FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEATH OF SENATOR 
BAKER. 

Mr. President : — On taking my seat in the Senate at its special 
session, in Jul}' last, my first active participation in its business was 
on the occasion of the proceedings commemorative of the death of 
the Hon. Stephen A, Douglas, my immediate predecessor ; and now, 
sir, at the commencement of this, my second session, it becomes my 
melancholy duty to bear a part in the ceremonies in honor of another 
who had been longer a citizen of the State of Illinois, whose memory 
is not less dear to the hearts of her people, and whose tragical and 
untimely death has shrouded the State in mourning. 

Hon. Edward D. Baker was, and had ever been, my personal and 
political friend, and, from earliest manhood, the relations between us 
had been of the closest and most confidential character that friendship 
allows ; and there are but few whose death would have left so large a 
void in my affections. 

Something my junior in years, he was my senior in the profession to 
which we both belonged, and commencing our professional career in 
the same State, and very near the same time, traveling much upon the 
same circuit, and belonging to the same political party, a friendship 
grew up which was cemented and strengthened by time, and continued 
from our first acquaintance amid the collisions of the bar, and the 
rivalries of politics, without ever having sustained a shock or an inter- 
ruption, even for a moment; and I owe it to the memories of the past, 
and to the relations which subsisted between us whilst he lived, to 
offer some poor tribute to his worth, now that he is dead. 



128 THE LIFE OP 

Few men who have risen to positions of great distinction and nseful- 
ne>5s, and left the impress of their lives upon their country's history, 
have been less indebted to the circumstances of birth and fortune. 
He inherited neither ancestral wealth nor honors; but whatever of 
either lie attained, was the reward of his own energy and talents. He 
was, very literally, the " architect of his own fortune." Connnencing 
the practice of law before he had reached the full maturity of man- 
hood, and in what was then a border State, but among lawyers whose 
talents and learning shed luster upon the profession to which tliey 
belonged, without the patronage of wealth or power, he soon made 
his way to the front rank of the bar, and maintained his position there 
to the hour of his death. 

But he did not confine himself exclusively to professional pursuits, 
and to the care of his own private affairs. He was a man of rare 
endowments, and of such fitness and aptitude for public employments 
as were sure to attract public attention. He could not, if he would, 
have made his way through life along its quiet, peaceful, and secluded 
walks; and it does him no discredit to say, that he would not if he 
could. 

He was too fully in sympathy with his kind to be indifferent to any- 
thing which affected their welfare, and too heroic in character to 
remain a passive spectator of great and stirring events. He was emi- 
nently a man of action ; and although fond of literature and science 
and art, and possessed of a refined ai'd cultivated taste, he yet loved the 
sterner conflicts of life more than the quiet conquests of tlie closet; 
and whilst a citizen of Illinois, served her both as soldier and civilian, 
and won distinction wherever he acted. He had elasticity, strength, 
versatility and fervor of intellect, and a mind full of resources. 

His talents were both varied and brilliant, and capable of great 
achievements ; but their usefulness was, j)erhaps, somewhat impaired 
by a peculiarity of physical organization which made him one of the 
most restless of men, and incapable of the close, steady and persever- 
ing mental application, without which great results cannot often be 
attained. It was not fickleness or unsteadiness of purpose, but a 
proud and impatient spurning of restraint, contempt for the beaten 



EDWARD D. BAKER. l29 

track of mental process, and disgust Avith the dullness and weariness of 
confinement and inaction. But this defect was, to a very great extent, 
compensated by the wonderful ease and rapidity with Avhich he Avould 
master any subject upon which he chose to concentrate the powers of 
his mind — by the marvelous facility with which he acquired knowledge, 
and the felicity with which he could use it. 

Whatever he could do at all, he could do at once, and up to the 
full measure of his capacity. Whatever he could comprehend at all, 
lie comprehended with the quickness of intuition, and gained but little 
afterwards by investigation and elaboration. He did not reach intel- 
lectual results as other men do, by the slow processes of analysis or 
induction, but if he could reach them at all, he could do it at a bound. 
And yet it was not jumping at conclusions, for he could always state 
with almost mathematical clearness and precision the premises from 
which he made his deductions, and guide you along the same path he 
had traveled to the same goal. He saw at a glance all the material, 
and all the relations of the material, which he intended to use, to the 
subject in hand, but which another would have carefully and labori- 
ously to search out and collect to be enabled to see at all, and diligently 
to collate before understanding its uses and relations. 

To a greater extent than most men, he combined the force and 
severity of logic with grace, fancy and eloquence, filling at the bar at 
tlie same time the character of the astute and profound lawyer, and the 
able, eloquent and successful advocate; whilst in the Senate, the wise, 
prudent and discreet statesman Avas combined Avith the chaste, classical, 
In-illiant and persuasive orator. 

But Avith all his aptitude for, and adaptation to, the highest and ' 
no])lest pursuits of the civilian, he had a natural taste, talent and 
fondness for the life of the soldier. There Avas something in the 
bugle-blast of AA^ar, and the cannon's roar, which roused his soul to its 
profoundest depths, and he could no more remain in inglorious ease at 
home, Avhile the desolations of A\-ar blackened and blasted the land, 
than the proud eagle could descend from his home in the clouds to 
dwell Avith the moping oavI. 

Three times, in his not protracted life, he led our citizen soldiers to 
the embattled plain to meet in deadlv conflict his country's foes. Alas I 
13 



130 THE LIFE OF 



1 



that he shall lead them ri^^iore ; that he shall never more marshal 
them for the glorious strife — never more rouse to the " signal trumix't 
tone." He has fallen ! " The fresh dust is chill upon the ))rca>t that 
burned erewhile with tires that seemed immortal." 

" He sleeps his last sleep — he has fought his last l)atl]e ; 
No sound shall awake him to glory again." 

He fell — as I think he would have preferred to fall, had he the 
choice of the mode of death — in the storm of battle, cheering his 
brave followers on to duty in the service of his adopted country, to 
which he felt that he owed much ; which he loved well, and had served 
long and faithfully. It does him no dishonor to say that he was a man 
of great ambition, and that he yearned after military renown ; but his 
ambition was chastened by his patriotism, his strong sense of justice, 
and his humanity ; and its fires never burned so iiercely in his bosom 
as to tempt him to purchase honor, glory, and distinction for himseli' 
l)y needlessly sacrificing, or even imperiling, the lives of others, lie 
was no untried soldier, with a name yet to win. It was already high 
on the roll of fame, and indissolubly linked with his country's history. 
Veurs ago, at home and abroad, he had drawn his sword in his country's 
cause, and shed his blood in defense of her rights. Years ago, ho had 
led our soldiers to battle, and by his gallantry shed new lustre on our 
ai-ms, and historic interest upon Cerro Gordo's heights; -and now lie 
liad that fame to guard and protect. He had to defend his already 
written page of history from blot or stain, as well as to add to 
it another leaf e(iually radiant and enduring. liut, Mr. President, it 
would be a poor, inadequate, and unworthy estimate of his character 
which should explore only a selfish ambition, and aspirations for indi- 
vidual glory for the sources of his action. 

The impelling causes were far higlier and nolder. He was a true, 
immovable, incorruptible and unshrinking patriot. He was the last, 
firm friend of civil and religious liberty, and believed that they should 
be the cdimiion heritage aiul blessing of all mankind, and that tliey 
could be secured and ("iijoyed oidy through the instrumentality of 
organi/.eil eoiistitutioual goveiM-mu'iit, and subnnssiou to and obedience 
of its laws; and the conviction on his mind was deep and profoujid 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 131 

that if the wicked rebellion, which had been iiiauguratcJ, went mire- 
buked, and treason triumphed over law, Constitutional government 
ill Xorth America would be utterly anniliilated, to be followed l)y the 
confusion of anarchy, and the confusions of anarchy to be succeeded 
by the oppressions and atrocities of despotism. He believed that what- 
ever the horrors and plagues and desolation of civil war might be, 
they would still be far less in magnitude and duration than the plagues 
and calamities which would inevitably follow upon submission and 
separation. The contest in which avc are engaged had been, without 
cause, or pretext of cause, forced upon us. We had to accept the 
strife, or so submit to an arrogant assumption of superiority of right 
as to show ourselves unworthy of the liberties and blessings, which the 
blood and treasure and wisdom and virtue of illustrious sires had 
achieved for us; and he believed that the issue of the contest was 
powerfully and virtually to affect the welflire and happiness of the 
American people, if not indeed of all other nations, for centuries yet 
to be. With these views, both just and patriotic, he recognized it as 
his duty to give his services to his country whenever, and in whatever 
capacity, they could be of most value and importance ; and with as 
much of self-abnegation as the frailties of humanity Avould allow, he 
took his place in the serried I'anks of war, and in the strict and discreet 
discharge of his duty as a soldier, fighting for his country in a holy 
cause, he fell. 

And it is, Mr. President, to me, his friend, a source of peculiar gratifi- 
cation that the history of the disastrous day which terminated his bril^ 
liant career, when it shall have been truthfully written, will be his full 
and sufficient vindication from any charge of temerity or recklessness 
regarding the lives of those intrusted to his care. He was brave, 
ardent and impetuous, and *' Avhen war's stern strength was on his 
soul," he no doubt felt that "one crowded hour of glorious life was 
worth an age without a name." But his was not the fitful impetuosity 
of the whirlwind, which unfits for self-control or the command of 
others, but the strong, steady, and resistless roll of the stream within 
its prescribed limits, and to its sure and certain object ; not the 
impetuosity wliicli culminates in fantastic rashness, but that which in 
the presence of danger is exalted to the sublimity of heroism. 



132 THE LIFE OF 

I liave said th.-it he was ^uiljitiou:-:, l)ut there was never ambition 
witli less of the taiiit and dross of selli.sliiies^. He was incapable of 
a moan and nnmanly envv, and was ever (luick to perceive and readv^ 
to acknowledj^c tlie meiit of a rival, and wonld stifle his own desires 
and postpone his own aggrandizement for the advancement of a friend. 
Xobl}' generous, he could and did make sacrifices of both pecuniary 
and political advantages to his friendships, which, w'ith him, were real, 
sincere and lat^ting. lie never sought to drag others down fi'oni moral 
or social, professional or political eminence, that he might rise upon 
the ruin, nor regarded the good fortune of another, in whatever voca- 
tion or department in life, as a wrong done him, or as any inipediment 
to his own prosperity. Brave and self-reliant, but neither rash nor 
presumptuous, he could avenge or forgive an injury with a grace and 
jtromptitude which did equal honor to his boldness of spirit and kind- 
ness of heart. Under insult or indignity, he was fierce and defiant, 
and could teach an enemy alike to fear and respect him, and, in the 
collisions of life's l)attle, may have given something of the impression 
of harshness of temper ; but in the domestic circle, amid the social 
throng, and under friendship's genial and enchanting influences, he 
was as gentle and confiding in his affections as a woman, and as tender 
and trustful as a child. 

Senator Baker was not only a lawyer, an orator, a statesman, and a 
soldier, but he was also a poet, and at all times, when deeply in earnest, 
both spoke and acted under high poetic inspiration. At one time, 
when I traveled upon the same circuit with him, and others who have 
since been renowned in the history of Illinois, it was no uncommon 
thing, after the labors of the day in court were ended, and forensic 
battles had been lost and won, for the lawyers to forget the asperities 
which had been engendered by the conflicts of the bar in the innocent, 
if not profitable, pastime of writing verses for the amusement of each 
other and their friends ; and I well remember with what greater facility 
than others, he could dash from his pen eff'usions sparkling all over 
with poetic gems ; and if all tliat he has thus written could be collected 
together, it would make no mean addition to the 'poetic literature of 
our country. Its beauty, grace and vivacity, would certainly redeem 
it from oblivion. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 133 

Yet lie did not aspire to tlie ehiiractcr of a poet, but wrought the 
poetic vein only for the present amusejnent of himself and intimate 
friends, and I am not aware that any of the productions of which I 
speak ever passed beyond that limited circle. They were not perpetuated 
by " the art preservative of all arts." 

The same thing is true of his forensic efforts, many of which were 
distinguished by a brilliancy, power and eloquence, and a classic 
grace and purity that would have done honor to the most renowned 
barrister, which live now only in the traditions of the country. 
Stenography, was, at that day, an unknown art in Illinois, and writing 
out a speech would have been a prodigality of time and labor of which 
an Illinois lawyer was probably never guilty. 

To Senators who were his cotemporaries here, and who have heard 
the melody of his voice, who have witnessed his powerful and impas- 
i^ioned bursts of eloquence, and felt the witchery of the spell that he 
has thrown upon them, it were vain for me to speak of his displays in 
this Chamber. It is no disparagement to his survivors to say, that he 
stood the iieer of any gentlemen on this floor in all that constitutes 
the able and skillful debater, and the classical, persuasive and 
enchanting orator. 

But his clear and manly voice shall be heard in these halls no more. 
Xever again shall these crowded galleries hang breathless on his words ; 
never again the thronging multitudes who gathered where'er he spoke 
be thrilled by the magic of his eloquence. The voice that could 
soothe to delicious repose, or rouse to a tempest of passion, is now 
hushed forever. The heart once so fiery, brave, lies pulseless in the 
tomb, and all that is left to his country or his home is the memory of 
of what he was. 

I will not attempt, Mr. President, to speak poor, cold words of 
sympathy and consolation to the stricken hearts of his fa«iily. I knov/, 
sir, hoAv bitter and immedicable their anguish is. I know, sir, how it 
rends the heart-strings, all willing though we be, to lay our loved ones 
as sacrifices even on our country's altar. The death-dealing hand of 
war has invaded my own household and slain its victim there, and I 
know that Avords bring no healing to the grief which follows these 
bereavements. The heart turns despairingly away from the " honor's 



134 THE LIFE OF 

voice," which provokos not^me silent dust, and from the flatteries 
which cannot 

" Soothe the dull cold e;ir of deiilh ;" 

xVnd the spirits e])b, and 

" Life's cuchautinj^ scenes their luster lose, 
And lessen in our sight." 
Time alone can bring healing on its Aving — 

" Time I the hcautificr of the dead, 

Adorncr of the ruin, comforter 
And only liealer when the heart hath liled," 
Can only mitigate, chasten, and sanctify the crushing sorrow. Aiul 
noi till after time has done its gentle work, and stilled the tempest of 
feeling, can the sorrowing hearts around his now desolate hearthstone 
find consolation in remembering how worthily he lived, and how 
gloriously he died — that he is " fortune's now, and fame's ;" and that 
when peace, on downy pinions, comes again to bless our troubled land, 
and all hearts have renewed their allegiance to the beneficent Govern- 
ment for which he died, history will claim him as its own, and canonize 
him in the hearts of his countrymen as a heroic martyr in the great 
cause of human rights, and chronicle his deeds on pages illuminated 
with the gratitude of freemen, and as imperishable as the love of 
libertv. 



RKMARKi5 OF THE LATE IIOX. JAMES A. M DOIGALL, IN THE SENATE. 

Mr, President: — Within the brief period I have occupied a seat on 
this floor, I have listened to the aiuiouncement of the decease of the 
two Senators nearest to me by the tics of association and friendship, 
l)oth representative men, and among the ablest that ever discoursed 
counsel in this Senate. 

I trust I shall be pardoned if it be thought there is something of 
pride in my claim of friendship with such distinguished and not to be 
Ibrgotten men. 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 135 

The late Senator from Illinois, as well as the late Senator of whom I 
am aboiit to speak, were my seniors in years, and much more largely 
instructed than myself in public affairs. Differing as they had for a 
period of more than a quarter of a century, they had met together, 
and in the maintenance in all its integrity of the great governmental 
institution of our fathers, they were one. Coming myself a stranger 
to your counsels, I looked to them for that home advice in which there 
is no i^urpose of disguise or concealment. 

Their loss has been, and is, to me, like the shadows of great clouds ; 
but while I have felt, and now feel, their loss, as companions, friends 
and counselors, in Avhose truth I trusted, I feel that no sense of private 
loss should find expression when a nation suffers. I may say here, 
liowever, that, while for the loss of these two great Senators a nation 
sufters, the far country from whence I come, feels the sufferings of a 
doul^le loss. They were both soldiers and champions of the West — of 
our new and undeveloped possessions. A few months since, the people 
of the Pacific, from the sea of Cortez to the straits of Fuca, mourned 
for iJoiighni ; the same people now mourn for Baker. The two Senators 
were widely different men, molded in widely different forms, and they 
walked in widely different paths ; but the tread of their hearts kept 
time, and they each sought a common goal, only by different pat];s. 

The record of the honorable birth, brilliant life, and heroic death of 
the late Edward Dickinson Baker has been already made by a thousand 
»'loqiient pens. That record has been read in ca>)in and in hall, from 
^\\\^\\c to farthest Oregon. I offer now ))ut to pay to his memory the 
Tribute of my love and praise. While paying this tribute with a 
jiioud sadness, I trust its value will not be diminished when I state, 
rhat, for many years, and until the recent demands of patriotism extin- 
uuished controversial differences, we were almost constant adversaries 
in the forum and at the bar. 

A great writer, in undertaking to describe one of the greatest men, 
said: "Know that tiiere is not one of you wlio is aware of his real 
nature/' I think tliat, witli all due respect, I might say of the late 
.Senator the saine thing to this Senate, as I was compelled to say it to 
mvself. Of all the men I have ever known, he was the most difficult 
to comprehend. 



13C) TEE LIFE OF 

IIo was a niany-?idc(l man. Will, mind, pov/or, radiated from ohe 
center within him in all directions ; and while the making of that 
circle, which, according to the dreams of old philosophy, would con- 
stitute a perfect being, is not within human hope he may I)C regarded 
as one w'ho at least illustrated the thought. 

His great powers cannot be attributed to the work of laborious 
years. They were not his achievements. They were gifts, God-given. 
His sensations, memory, thought and action, went hand in hand 
together with a velocity and power, which, if not always exciting 
admiration, compelled astonishment. 

Although learned, the late Senator was not what is called a scholar. 
He was too full of stirring life, to labor among the moldy records of 
dead ages; and had he not been, the wilderness of the AVest furnished 
no field for the exercise of mere scholarly acomplishments. 

I say the late Senator w^as learned. He was skilled in metaphysics, 
logic and law. He might be called a master of history, and of all the 
literature of our own language. lie knew much of music — not only 
music as it gives present pleasure to the ear, but music in the sense in 
which it was understood by the old seekers after wisdom, who held 
that in harmonious sounds rested some of the great secrets of the 
infinite. 

Poetry he inhaled and expressed. Tlie afliatus called dlviiiphrc^ihoil 
about him. Many years since, on the then wild plains of the AVcst, 
in the middle of a star-lit night, as we journeyed together, I heard first 
from him the chant of that noble song, " The Battle of Ivry." Two 
of its stanzas impressed me then, and there are other reasons why 
they impress me now : 

" The King has come to marshal us, in all his armor drest. 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest ; 
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high, 
Right graciously he smiled on us, as ran from wing to wing, 
Down all our line a deafening shout, '(Jodsave our Lord the King I' 
And if my standard-bearer fall, and fall full well he nuiy, 
For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, 



EDWARD D. BAKER 137 

Press where ye see my white plume shines, amid-;t tlie ranks of war, 

And be your oriflannne to-day, the hehnet of Navarre. 

"Hurrah ! the foes are moving ; hark the mingled din 

Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring eulverin ; 

The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's plain, 

With all the hireling chivalry of Gueldre's and Almagne : 

Xow by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France, 

Charge ! for the golden lilies ; now upon them with the lance ! 

A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest, 

A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white crest ; 

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star, 

Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre." 

It was the poetry which embodies the life of great and chivalrous 
action which moved him most, and he possessed the power to create it. 

He was an orator — not an orator trained to the model of the Greek 
or Roman school, but one far better suited to our age and people. He 
was a master of dialectics, and possessed a power and skill in words, 
which would have confounded the rhetoric of Gorgias, and demanded of 
the great master of dialectics himself, the exact use of all his materials 
of wordy warfare. 

He was deeply versed in all tliat belongs to the relations and con- 
duct of all forms of societies, from families to States, and the laws 
which have and do govern them. He was not a man of authorities, 
simply because he used authorities only as th.e rounds whereby to 
ascend to principles. Having learned much, he was a remarkable 
master of all he knew, v/hether it was to analyze, generalize, or com- 
bine his vast materials. 

It was true of him, as it is true of most remarkable minds, that he 
did not always appear to be all he was. The occasion made the measure 
of the exhibition of his strength. When th^ occasion challenged the 
effort, he could discourse as cunningly as the sage of Ithaca, and as 
wisely as the king of Pylus. 

He was a soldier. He was a leader ; " a man of Avar," fit, like the 
Tachmonite, " to sit in the seat, chief among the captains." Like all 
men who possess hero blood, he loved fame, glorA^^ honorable renoAvn. 
14 



188 Tin: LiFi: ov 

lie thirsted lor it with ;in ardent thir.st, as did Cicero and Ciesar ; and 
what was that nectar in wliich the gods deliglited in Ingh Olympus, 
but tlie V, ine of praise for great deeds accomplished ? Would tliat lie 
might have lived, so that his great sacrifice might have been offered, 
and his great soul have gone up from some great victorious field, his 
lips bathed with the nectar that he loved. 
None ever felt more than he — 

" Since all must life resign, 

Those sweet deliglits that decorate the ))rave, 
'Tis folly to decline, 

And steal inglorious to the silent grave." 

But it Mas something more than the fierce tliirst for glory that 
carried tiie late Senator to the field of sacrifice. No one felt more 
than he the majestic dignity of the great cause ibr which our nation 
now makes war. lie loved freedom ; if you please, Anglo-Saxon free- 
dom ; for he was of that great old race. He loved this land, this whole 
land. He had done nmch to conquer it from the wilderness ; and by 
his own acts he had made it his land. 

Hero blood is patriot blood. When he witnessed the storm of 
anarchy with wiiich the madness of depraved ambition sought to over- 
whelm the land of his choice and love, when he heard the l)attle-eall, 

" Lay down the axe, fling l)y the spade. 

Leave in its track the toiling plow ; 
The rifie and the bayonet blade. 

For arms like yours are fitter now . 

"And let the hands that ply the pen, 
(ixut the light task, and learn to wield 

The horseman's crooked brand, and rein 
The charger on the battle-field. 

''()iir country calls ; away I away ! 

To where the blood-streams l)lot the green ; 
Strike t(j defend the gentlest sway, 

That time in all its coui'se has seen." 



EDWARD D. BAKER. 139 

It was in the spirit of the patriot liero that the gallant soldier, the 
grave senator, the white-haired man of counsel, yet full of youth 
as full of years, gave answer as does the war horse, to the trumpet's 
sound. 

The wisdom of his conduct has been questioned. Many have thought 
that he should have remained for counsel in this hall. Mr. President, 
the propriety of a Senator taking upon himself the duties of a soldier, 
depends, like many other things, on circumstances ; and certainly 
such conduct has the sanction of the example of great names. 

Socrates — who Avas not of the councils of Athens, simply because he 
deemed his office as a teacher of wisdom a liigher and nobler one — 
did not think it unworthy of himself to serve as a common soldier 
in ))attle ; and when Plato seeks best to describe, and most to dignifiy, 
his great master, he causes Alcibiades, among other things, to say of him: 

*' I ought not to omit what Socrates was in battle ; for in that battle 
after which the generals decreed to me the prize of courage, Socrates 
alone, of all men, was the savior of my life, standing by me when* I 
had fallen and was wounded, and preserving both myself and my arms 
from the hands of the enemy. But to see Socrates, Avhen our army 
was defeated and scattered in flight at Delius, was a spectacle worthy 
to behold.. On that occasion I Avas among the cavalry, and he on foot 
heavily armed. After the total rout of our troops, he and Laches 
retreated together. I came up by chance ; and seeing them, bade 
them be of good cheer, for that I would not leave them. As I was on 
horseback, and therefore less occupied by a regard of my own situation, 
I could better observe than at Potidoea, the beautiful spectacle exhibi- 
ted by Socrates on this emergency. * -^ * * fjg walked and 
darted his regards around with a majestic composure, looking tranquilly 
both on his friends and enemies, so that it was evident to every one, 
even from afar, that whoever should venture to attack him would 
encounter a desperate resistance. He and his companion thus departed 
in safety ; for those who are scattered in flight are pursued and 
killed, whilst men hesitate to touch ihose who exhibit such a counte- 
nance as that of Socrates, even in defeat." 

This is the picture of a sage painted by a sage ; and Avhy may not 
jrreat wisdom be the strongest element of a great war ? 



140 THE LIFE OF 

In the days when the States of Greece were free, when Rome was 
free, when Venice was free, who but their great statesmen, counselors, 
and senators, led their armies to victorious battle ? In the best days 
of all the great and free states, civil place and distinction were never 
held inconsistent Avith military authority and conduct. So far from it, 
all history teaches the fact that those who have proved most compe- 
tent to direct and administer the affairs of government, in, times of 
peace, were not only trusted, but were best trusted with the conduct 
of armies in the time of war, 

la these teachings of history there may be some lessons we have yet 
to learn ; and that we have such lessons to learn I know was the strong 
conviction of the late Senator. 

It is with no sense of satisfaction that I feel it my duty to say, that 
I have been led to the opinion that there is much soundness in the 
opinion he entertained. 

It is but a brief time since the late Senator was among us, maintain- 
ing our counti'y's cause, Avith wise counsel, clothed in eloquent Avords. 
When, in August last, his duties here as a Senator for the time ceased, 
he devoted himself exclusively to the duties of a soldier. Occupying 
a subordinate position, commanded, where he Avas most fit to command, 
lie received liis orders. He saAv and kncAv the nature of the enterprise 
he Avas required to undertake ; he saAv and kncAv that he Avas required 
to move underneath the shadoAv of the Avings of Azrael. He did not, 
he Avould not, question the requirement made of him. His motto on 
that day Avas : "A good heart and no hope." He kneAV, as Avas knoAA'n 
at Balaklava, that some one had blundered ; yet he said, " Forward, 
my brigade, although some one has blundered." 

Was this reckless rashness ? Xo ! 

It may be called sacrifice, self-sacrifice ; but I Avho knew the mauAvho 
Avas the late Senator — the calm, self-possessed perfectncss of his valor, 
and who have studied all the details of the field of his last offering 
Avith a sad earnestness, say to you, sir, to this Senate, to the country, 
and particularly to the people of the land of the West, Avhere most 
and best he is known and loved, that no rash, reckless regardlessness 
of danger can be attributed to him. It is but just to say of him, that 
his conduct sprung from a stern, hei'o, patriot, martyr spirit, that 



EDAVARD D. BAKER. 141 

enabled liiin to dare, miflincliiiigly, witli a smile to the green eartli, 
and a smile to the bright lieaveiis, and a cheer to his brave companions, 
ascend tlie altar of sacrifice. 

A poet of tli'^ middle ages, speaking of Carthage as tl)en a dead 
city, the grave of v.diich was scarcely discernible, says : 

" For cities die, kingdoms die ; a little sand and grass cover all that 
was once lofty in them, and glorious ; and yet man, forsooth, disdains 
that l:e is mortal ! Oh, mind of ours, inordinate and proud !" 

It is true cities and kingdoms die, but the eternal thought lives on. 
(ricat tliougl'.t, incorporate with great action., does not die, but lives 
a universal life, and its power is felt vibrating through all spirit, and 
tliroughout all the ages. 

I doubt wliether or not we should mourn for any of the dead. I am 
confident that there should be no mourning for those who render 
themselves up as sacrifices in any great, just and holy cause. It better 
becomes us to praise and dignify them. 

It was the faith of an ancient people that the souls of heroes did 
not rest until their great deeds had been liymned by bards, to the 
sounds of martial music. 

Bards, worthy of the ancient time, have hymned the praise of the 
great citizen, Senator and soldier, who has left us. They have shower- 
ed on liis memory 

" Those leaves, which for the eternal few 
AVho wander o'er the paradise of fame, 
In sacred dedication ever grew." 

I would that I were able to add a single leaf to the eternal amaranth. 

In long future years, when our night of horror shall have passed, and 
there shall have come again 

" The welcome morning with its rays of peace," 
young seekers after fame, and young lovers of freedom throughout all 
this land, yea, and other and distant lands, will recognize, honor, and 
imitate our late associate as one of the undying dead. 



142. THE LIFE OF 



REMARKS OK IHt\. SOHVf.KR COLFAX, IN TIIK IIOTSK OV KKPRKSKXTATF VES. 

Mr. Speaker: — The I'lineml jji-oeessioii of the departed Baker has 
passed through the crowded streets of our Atlantic cities. The 
steamer, perluips, to-day is bearing its precious Inirden between the 
portals of the Golden Gate. The thousands mIio, -with enthusiastic 
acclaim, cheered his departure as a Senator, stand, with bowed frames, 
and bared heads, and weeping eyes, to receive with honor, but with 
sorrow, the lifeless renuiins that are to be buried in their midst. And 
there devolves upon us, liis former associates, brought by the telegraph 
almost to the side of his open grave, the duty of rendering also our 
tribute of affection to his memory. 

To say that the deceased Senator was an extraordinary man, is simply 
to reiterate what the wliole counti-y long since conceded. He carved 
out his own niche in the temple of fame. He built his own pedestal in 
our American Valhalla. And if the French philosopher, D'Alembert, 
was correct in saying that there are but three ways of rising in the 
world — to soar, to crawl and to climl) — our friend's history is a striking 
exemplification of the last and Avorthiest of these Avays. The hand- 
loom weaver boy of Philadelphia — the friendless lad, with his whole 
fortune in a meager bundle, turning his face w^estward — the patient 
journey, footsore and weary, over mountains and valleys — ^the deputy 
in the clerk's office at CarroUton, patiently mastering the principles of 
the law — his rapid rise in his px'ofession — his election to Congress from 
the Capital (district) of Hlinois — his volunteerhig in the Mexican Avar, and 
raising, equipping, and marching his regiment Avithin fourteen days — 
his brilliant charge at Cerro Gordo, Avhen, folloAving up the victory 
Avhich his impetuous and dashing heroism had mainly Avon, he pursued 
the enemy for miles Avith fearful slaughter — liis removal, on his return, 
to another Congressional district, Avhich he carried by his Avonderful 
eloquence against its previous political convictions — his removal to 
California — his thrilling oration over the murdered Broderick — his 
triumphant canvass in Oregon — his election to the Senate by a Legis- 
lature, a large majority of Avhich differed with him in their political 



EDWARD D. BAKER. . 143 

associations — liis brilliant and impromptu denunciations of traitors, 
whom, in the Senate Chamber, he prophetically hurled from the 
Tarpeian rock — his exchanging the robe of the Senator for the sword 
of the soldier — his daring struggle to wrest victory, against overwhelm- 
ing odds, from fate itself — and his death at the head of his column, 
literally with his back to the field and his face to the foe — what an 
eventful life ! to be crowned by such a glorious death. 

We know not but that death may have been as welcome to him as 
life, especially when he fell in such a sacred cause. Some long for 
death on the battle-field, knowing that it is appointed for all men once 
to die, and that he who dies for his country is enshrined forever in 
thousands upon thousands of patriot hearts. Others, who, if we could 
put a window in their breasts, we would find that they carried a burden 
of care or sorrow through life', feel that the shaft of death, when sped 
by its messenger, would have no pain for them. And with others, 
life is so joyous that the hour of their departure is one of gloom, and 
thick darkness encompasses the valley their feet must tread. But for 
our friend, who had won his w^ay to his highest ambition, and who fell, 
in the very zenith of his fame, in defense of the Constitution and the 
Union, charging at the head of advancing columns, careless of danger, 
of odds, or of death, leaving behind him a glory which shall survive 
long after his tombstone has molded into dust — we should rather 
weave for him a garland of joy than a chaplet of sorrow. 

I know there was sadness in the family, which no earthly sympathy 
can assuage. I know there was sadness at the White House, where 
his early friends mourned their irreparable loss. I know there was 
sadness at the Capitol ; sadness on the Atlantic coast ; sadness in the 
valley of the Mississippi ; sadness, as one of the first messages flashed 
along the wire he had so earnestly longed to see stretched from ocean 
to ocean, bore to the Pacific the tidings of their great loss. There was 
sadness around the camp-fires of over half a million gallant volunteers, 
who, like him, had oftered their lives to their country in its hour of 
trial. So, too, if the legends of antiquity intend to connnemorate 
some patriotic sacrifice of life by the story of Curtius leaping into an 
open gulf to save the Roman republic, was there sorrow doubtless at 



144 THE LIFE OF 

liis fate. And sadness, to^^vhen Lconidas, at the head of his feeble 
band looked death cahnly in the face, and gave up his narrow span of 
earthly life to live immortalized in history. 

But, though there be sadness such as this, let us also rejoice that 
our friend has left behind him such, a record and such a fame, height- 
ened by his ]uagical eloquence, and hallowed forever by his fervid 
patriotism. For doubly crowned as statesman and warrior — 
*' From the top of fame's ladder he stepped to the sky." 



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